Katie Melua is from Georgia, Russia, and has a hit single out called "Nine Million Bicycles."
In the second verse she sings: "We are 12 billion light years from the edge, that's a guess, no one can ever say it's true, but I know that I will always be with you."
Simon Singh, a physicist who recently wrote a book on the history of cosmology called Big Bang, found her lyrics "deeply annoying". He said:
"It's the word 'guess' that I rail against. I can guess the lottery numbers for next week but the edge of the universe is better than that.
"It's a pretty good estimate, a really well defined number of 13.7 billion light years. After thousands of years of wondering about the universe we've now got a number and I just wanted to celebrate that.
"Katie Melua has no right to call the age of the universe "a guess" or quote it as 12 billion years when we now know it to be 13.7 billion years old. You might think that I am being rather uptight, but the role of the scientist is slowly being undermined with a growing belief that scientific results are merely subjective guesses.
"In the light of this, I propose that Miss Melua rewrite the verse."
Amazingly, Katie agreed to re-record the song!
In the new version she sings: "We are 13.7 billion light years from the edge of the observable universe, that's a good estimate, with well defined error bars, and with the available information I predict that I will always be with you."
Melua, who despite recording a new version intends to stick with the original, joked: "It was quite hard to get all the syllables in.
"It was just so funny it really had me giggling for quite a few hours."
6 comments:
that was too funny. people ar so funny in general. can't believe the scientist complained!
Rock 'N Roll and math don't mix.
Sheesh.. Life's too short.. lol
Or maybe he'd like to take a guess at how long his days will be.. ;-)
Hey, you guys OK with all thse storms n stuff? just wondering..
Thinking of you. xx
Glad you're ok.. Thanks for the comment! :-)
I'm not a cosmologist, but is it really the same? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the universe initially expanded faster than the speed of light. I suppose that was a very short period of time and for all practical purposes the size and age might be the same.
Reminds of the famous goof from Star Wars when Han Solo brags about doing the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!
Post a Comment