#sizequalifiers — Public Fediverse posts

(1)
Such an instrument as the Extremely Large Telescope (under construction) is very impressive indeed.
Like other people, however, I can't help thinking that in this domain as well the time of expensive huge things in tiny numbers is ending and small inexpensive things in big numbers will rule.
(In the military domain this was predicted decades ago and is already real.)

In fact, the following sentence, buried near the end of the article, shows that astronomers are aware of that:
«For example, there are ideas like building lots of telescopes, kilometres apart, and connecting them to make a mega-telescope.»

(2)
ESO astronomer Mariya Lyubenova indeed comes from Sofia, Bulgaria.

(3)
By going from "very large" to "extremely large", they skipped "ultra large".
(Compare UHF after VHF for High (radio) Frequency.)

(4)
«That concrete, when it was laid, needed to be extraordinarily flat, he says, to an accuracy of 1/3,600th of a degree, and to account for the Earth's curvature too.»

This is for a building that is only about 100 meters across, which is comparable to the length of an arc of a meridian for the same difference in latitude.

I suppose the author or the editor decided that 1 arc second sounds less impressive.
In my opinion, though, real knowledge of one _degree_ of arc can't be taken for granted, either.
Does everybody know "cold", for example, the measure of a minute-of-time arc on a clock face, or of the face of the Moon observed from the Earth?

(Very unfortunately, the above quote also reminded me of the poisonous belief in a flat Earth...)

(5)
I couldn't help thinking that alien life is to astronomy as gold artefacts are to archaeology.
They do bring excitement to the public at large.

BBC article:
In the otherworldly Chilean desert, this huge telescope could reveal alien life
<https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260827-the-biggest-telescope-of-all-time-is-nearly-ready-could-it-reveal-alien-life>

#Astronomy
#EuropeanAstronomers
#SizeQualifiers
#SmallIsBeautiful
#UnitsOfArc