Word: freedman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Samuel M. Freedman, M.D. Hollywood, Florida...
...Freedman is the first to admit her team's age figures could be off 20% in either direction. The reason: no one knows whether M100 lies inside the Virgo cluster or whether it is more in the foreground or background. Astronomers have to check out other galaxies in the area before they are sure that M100 fairly measures the distance of the cluster as a whole. They're also checking galaxies outside Virgo, and while Freedman won't say what they have found so far, she told TIME that the results are "consistent" with the preliminary figures...
...mass might help solve the dark-matter problem and thus provide support for the inflation theory. But in some ways that would just make the crisis in cosmology worse. The more dark matter there is in the universe, the harder it is to explain the new findings made by Freedman's group about the age of the cosmos. When they say the universe is between 8 billion and 12 billion years old, their vagueness reflects uncertainty about how much matter the cosmos contains. If there's a lot, as inflation suggests, its gravity would be slowing down the universe...
...inflation is correct, then, the age crisis is as bad as it can pos-sibly be. No amount of theory adjustment can bring stars down to 8 billion years of age. So if Freedman's initial attempt to date the universe holds up, Primack and plenty of other theorists may have to begin prying themselves away from an idea they have held dear for more than a decade-unless they can think of some clever...
...STRUCTURE PROBLEM: At least there are some models of the cosmos-unpopular though they may be-that accommodate Freedman's age estimates. The same cannot be said for Lauer and Postman's detection of large-scale motions across the universe. Most scientists are betting that their observation is just plain wrong, but they haven't yet been able to pinpoint why. And both Lauer and Postman admit that the effect may wash out as they collect more data from deeper in space...