User talk:TowardsTheLight

Irony
Just thought I'd say I find it ironic and amusing to see "TowardsTheLight" editing the British Astronomical Association page. Move to the darkness for better visibility! Unless you're a solar astronomer. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

That's true! I'll turn the lights off soon. TowardsTheLight (talk) 13:25, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

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Jesse Ramsden
Thanks for adding the reference to a nice article. I started worked on this page last year and my intention was to come back and enlarge all the sections on instruments and dig up relevant images. The main problem is to find more references to material that is on the web and some non-copyright images. I had thought of trying to contact McDonnel to see if she had anything to provide. Care to assist? I'm very busy with another page at the moment. Peter Mercator (talk) 12:37, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Peter Mercator. I've been trying to add new references to articles about the history of astronomy, and found something relevant to Ramsden, so added that. There are some images relevant to Ramsden on the Wikimedia Commons, so it should be straightforward to add some from there. There are several in the category https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jesse_Ramsden . I might have a go sometime. I'll have a look at some old books to try to find out-of-copyright images that could be scanned, but that might take a few weeks.TowardsTheLight (talk) 13:42, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Eleazar (Eleazer) Roberts
Hi, I was the one who moved Eleazar Roberts to the spelling Eleazer, because I thought it was an accidental misspelling, based on its appearance in the normally reliable New Grove and the spelling that appeared in the footnotes from the original article by User:FruitMonkey. But as you correctly point out, the Welsh biographical dictionary actually has the "Eleazar" spelling (despite the footnote, which you have corrected), as do the other footnotes as far as I can tell (the fifth footnote, the other that mentioned his name and was spelled "Eleazer," seems to be dead). Based on these sources, I think you're right that "Eleazar" is the correct spelling, but I wonder about why the "Eleazer" spelling appears in so many sources. (Others include this from his lifetime and this work of secondary scholarship. If these are not mere typos, was the spelling changed in his lifetime, or was one for use in English and one in Welsh? If you know, it would be good to have that in the article, since "Eleazer Roberts" should obviously redirect there. Rigadoun (talk) 16:51, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * That's interesting. The accessible references in the article all use Eleazar as the spelling, not Eleazer. It was on the basis that I reverted the changes to the article. That includes the Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales used twice in the footnotes. It's therefore not clear why the original editor used the spelling Eleazer for those references.
 * That the New Grove uses Eleazer is a little surprising given that the Dictionary of Welsh Biography used Eleazar (and the New Grove contributor would presumably have checked that publication at some point).
 * A search through the Welsh Journals Online resource at the National Library of Wales finds 294 occurrences of "Eleazar Roberts" and 114 of "Eleazer Roberts", at least some of both sets matching the Eleazar Roberts of the article. Both spellings were used in publications in Welsh. So it does appear that both spellings were used quite widely, and presumably by the subject of the article himself. I'll add a comment about the other form Eleazer to the article.
 * The missing reference (number 5) in the article appears to be available here. That uses just the name "E. Roberts". I'll replace the link in the article with that. TowardsTheLight (talk) 21:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

How relative time must be adjusted
13.8 billion years ago was the proper figure in 2019, however it is relative time so right now it would be billion years ago. Using a dynamic formula is the only way to ensure the relative time with uncertainty always refers to the same time range. 2A01:119F:31B:5D00:9421:EF37:6D83:A9A9 (talk) 18:13, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

An example: An article in 2019 says an event happened 3 years ago, with an uncertainty of 1 year. This means it happened in 2015, 2016, or 2017. However, when the year changes to 2020, the time range suddenly changes to 2016, 2017, or 2018, which is inconsistent with what it was before. So it must be changed to a dynamic formula that says it happened years ago, with an uncertainty of 1 year. This makes it always the proper time range. The same thing is happening with the article of Chronology of the universe. 2A01:119F:31B:5D00:9421:EF37:6D83:A9A9 (talk) 18:18, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Please see the discussion started at Talk:Chronology of the universe. The basic point is that we do not have a date for the big bang, we have a rough estimate of how long ago - and that precision is nowhere close to 1 year precision. Tarl N. ( discuss ) 19:00, 8 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The article quotes an age of the Universe of 13.8 Gyr with an uncertainty of 21 million years. An uncertainty this large would make quoting ages and dates to the nearest year meaningless. I reverted the original edit (stating that the Big Bang occurred in the year 13799997982 BC) on the belief that it was probably vandalism. Whether it was a good-faith edit or vandalism, quoting a meaningless precision would make no sense. TowardsTheLight (talk) 20:27, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was just skimming your page to get some idea if your removal of my edit was in good faith—but the concept of time itself starting in a particular year is hilarious to me! 😆 2604:2D80:DE09:D400:1C0:793:75E5:9481 (talk) 23:11, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

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