The Cosmic Distance Ladder

Watch the entire video if you wish but my focus is on on this specific portion of the video.

(Specific segment of video I reference)
The greatest, most obvious, least talked about
conspiracy

I think the odds of going to Vegas and having ever slot machine be a winner are greater than the "coincidence" we use to determine much of what we know about the Universe. Evolution obviously can not be discussed in this thread. It has no place in this discussion since one can't attribute living qualities to the objects in question.

I'm simply pointing out the fact that our position in the Universe is a sham. It's such an obvious set-up IMHO. The size of the moon (unusually large for a satellite of a planet this size) and the distance from the Earth to the moon, in relation to the size of the sun and the distance of the sun to the Earth is just laughably fixed. So the basis of our measurement of distances in the Universe is a complete accident?

About the video:

AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics: Terence Tao is UCLA's Collins Professor of Mathematics, and the first UCLA professor to win the prestigious Fields Medal. Less than a month after winning the Fields Medal, Tao was named a MacArthur Fellow. The following month, Tao was named one of "The Brilliant 10" scientists by Popular Science magazine, which called him "Math's Great Uniter" and said that "to Tao, the traditional boundaries between different mathematical fields don't seem to exist." Tao's AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics is titled "The Cosmic Distance Ladder."

(Entire video for your ease of viewing)



Feel free to disagree. Doubt this will get more than a handful of replies. This has probably been discussed elsewhere but thought this video was amazing and I couldn't help but laugh at the highlighted portion. Agree or disagree this is a hugely fascinating video.

reply to post by dbates

I’m afraid I don’t have time to watch videos. Could you be so kind as to offer your fellow-members a few words of your own that will explain what this ‘coincidence’ is, what the ‘cosmic distance ladder’ is, and so on?

It may help.

If the coincidence is that the solar and lunar discs form an image of similar height on the retina when viewed with the naked eye from Earth's surface, well, yes, that’s a pretty unlikely occurrence. As Iain Banks suggests (not very seriously) in Transition, it may turn our planet into a tourist attraction for aliens during total solar eclipses because of the magnificent corona that is then visible.

Originally posted by Astyanax
If the coincidence is that the solar and lunar discs form an image of similar height on the retina when viewed with the naked eye from Earth's surface, well, yes, that’s a pretty unlikely occurrence.

That is the punch line of the joke (coincidence, accident) I suppose.
This link jumps to the specific moment of clarity in the video. You've stated that fairly well but it's amusing to hear one of the most brilliant minds in astrometry, Terence Tao, reference this "accident". Again even to those in disagreement with my opinion this is an interesting video. It's purely math and science but Terence Tao has a gift for speaking about these things for sure.