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Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

Anything within 1 billion light years from us is considered “near by universe”, it’s sometimes also called our local universe.

Tt’s the region of space around us in which cosmic evolution doesn’t play a major factor for observations unlike something that say is 10 billion light years away.

Basically it’s a anything close enough to us that when we observe it we can assume that at least as far as the galactic evolution goes it’s in a current or “developed” state, as in mature and fully formed galaxies.

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That's usually called "space", not "universe". The universe is the entirety of space around us. By virtue of countability, the phrase "nearby universe" is problematic since it suggests contrast with other, "far" universes (which don't include the space around us).

"Hot singles in your area" is a bit different than "Hot singles in your nearby area."

The term "nearby universe" is perfectly fine, as far as the English language goes.

> "Hot singles in your nearby area."

This doesn't sound like standard English either, though.

If it's good enough for the New York Times, it's good enough for me:

https://ludwig.guru/s/nearby+area

Bad rule of thumb, in general.

You missed a key word. I'm not against the use of the phrase "nearby area" which is obviously acceptable, just like "nearby" + any_noun is acceptable. Anyway, there are also plenty of cases - although they rarely occur - where the phrase "your nearby area" could be used. This just isn't one of them.

https://ludwig.guru/s/your+nearby+area

Hot singles in a nearby area would make sense

Hot singles in your nearby area doesn't make sense, because it is unclear what the intention of the word "nearby" is. It clearly modifies "area". So the area is nearby something. By what is it nearby?

This analogy fails because distance on a cosmological scale means both space and time whilst on smaller scales we measure space and time as two distinct parameters.

If we go with the single analogy it would be like filtering on Tinder based on distance as well as when the last time that account was active.

It’s like if going more than 50 miles further out of your existing location would only show tinder accounts from 5 years ago which wouldn’t be relevant for what you are looking for which are people who are single right now and looking right now.

> "Hot singles in your area" is a bit different than "Hot singles in your nearby area."

I wasn't using the word "area", though.

> The term "nearby universe" is perfectly fine, as far as the English language goes.

Not according to my language sensibility at the very least. Just like sibling comment's remark about "nearby house" when talking about the very house you're currently in.

"Inheritance" means very different things to programmers and normal people. You can't expect domain use to follow your sensibilities.

One is class¹ inheritance, the other one is (most likely about) wealth inheritance. They do, however, both respect the notion of inheritance, I don't see why anyone's sensibilities would be affected. But then comes "local universe", which although refers to the local part of THE universe, it drops the definitive article, only because coining a new (albeit controversial) term in astronomy is more rewarding for someone looking to leave a mark on the domain than to respect logic to a more sensible result.

¹ Let's leave for now what "class" means for programmers vs. other kinds of people.

In this case you literally gave a better example “class”, that said in cosmology there is only one universe ours.

The multiverse and other theories of multiple universes nominally belong to other fields of study.

Cosmology is the study of the universe we live in, specifically it’s development.

That’s why we have terms such as the local/near by universe and the observable universe. I find odd that none that that seem to take offense with the former mentions the latter, since grammatically they are identical.

You are more than welcome to become a prominent cosmologist and advocate for the term change.

It’s very much called the local universe not local space http://www.astro.wisc.edu/our-science/research-areas/extraga...

Space or outer space isn’t a term commonly used in cosmology which is the field of study of the chronology and evolution of the universe.

And in this context it makes perfect sense within 1b light years we can observe the universe as it is more or less in its current state, so looking at something 100 light years away or 1b isn’t that different. Once you go past that line you begin to go further and further in time so different stages within the evolution of the universe take precedence over local phenomena.

It doesn’t indicate that there are other universes out there just due to the speed of light what we can observe can be drastically different than what is around us as well as what is actually going anywhere else at the current age of the universe.

You do realize at the very least the significant difference between "local" and "nearby"?

You do realize at the very least that different academic fields have developed different lingo, and that words therefore mean different things in different settings?

You do realize at the very least that even if that is true of some words, it's not necessarily true of all words?

Can you read the definition? “Local Universe - Studies of the nearby universe encompass a region of approximately 1 billion light years in radius, over which the effects of cosmic evolution are small.”

While it does sound weird, it is a term that scientists are using to distinguish between the universe as a whole of existence that was, is including us and will be, and what we can observe within our capabilities from our position on Earth, in the Sol system, travelling in the Orion Arm of Milky Way galaxy. The universe and the observable universe.

This of course has nothing to do with the popular scifi concept of parallel universes.

A better call would have been "nearby part of the universe", with "the" being the most important word that should not have been left out. It may not have been as terse/catchy as "nearby universe", but it would not have strayed into controversy (the kind of which we see here).

The observable universe isn’t the same as the local universe. The observable universe encompasses a region of approximately 13.7B light years from our point of observation which is earth, the local or near by universe is limited to about 1b light years.

Both have their usefulness when conducting observations as we need to take certain assumptions based on what we know.

The former is anything that is currently within our cosmological horizon the latter is anything we can observe that is in the same relative slice of time or cosmological development stage as us.

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