I bolded the stuff you said that is wrong. Basically you are saying something supports a hypothesis when it is completely unrelated information. The list I made earlier was assumptions that would have to be made in order to think the two were related.
That's not exactly what I had in mind. You should be quoting the bolded parts then posting your evidence or reasoning why it was wrong. All you've done here is continue your vague confusing thinking. And sorry, but I still can't follow it. After looking at the discussion of the Nemesis hypothesis in Wiki, I see the failure to find any candidates has put the hypothesis in greater doubt. That is separate from the discovery of the path of these two objects crossing the Oort Cloud. Finding stars that passed by, while not the specific Nemesis object, still adds evidence to the hypothesis. Like it or not, that's how evidence works. Sometimes it is indirect evidence rather than direct evidence. You got any evidence this is not true? And you have an issue with this, why? I'm going to ignore this one. Your analogy was false, you still don't know what an hypothesis is. And, it wasn't. Again, there is nothing wrong with this statement.
Yes, you are absolutely right, my mistake. I do not even know why I am arguing the toss over this, just procrastinating when I should be doing something else.
I've tried to explain why finding an object do nothing to help support the nemesis hypothesis. The probability of finding such an object was already estimated to be the same and it is still estimated to be the same whether or not they found this object. The probability of finding another object is still estimated to be the same and was not influenced by finding this object. Finding an object that grazed the Oort cloud isn't related to the nemesis hypothesis except that both objects are in the same general area. They have different trajectories and cause different consequences. The dice thing had nothing to do with the hypothesis discussion. What was known beforehand: Stars pass this close to our solar system on average every 9 million years. What was found: Oh look, we found one that passed. What was known beforehand: It is possible to role 5 sixes in a roll with a pair of dice What was found: Oh look, someone did it. That has nothing to do with an hypothesis. That had to do with people saying its the discovery of a lifetime when its just observing something everyone already knew existed. Then I think people said: "This proves the hypothesis these things exist, no one knew before." Then I replied "We know stars move in varying directions so making it a separate hypothesis that they can potentially move close to each other is dumb. If anything its a null hypothesis because in order to say they can't move next to each other you'd have to come up with a new mechanism like some force field." Then I was told I didn't know what an hypothesis is. Sorry, but the only useful information for backing the nemesis hypothesis we already knew before this object was discovered. This information is the probability that such objects are nearby. The nemesis involves something that orbits instead of just being bombarded every so often so that just further distances it.
This book was my introduction to hard scifi. Recommended to me by my brother as one of the best in the subgenre. Very clever book and certainly enjoyable if you like hard scifi.
Definitely a seminal work. He wrote a sequel, but I haven't read that one. Also, his daughter Eve Forward wrote an interesting fantasy novel called Villains by Necessity, which takes place in a Tolkein-like fantasy world, after the forces of good have won the battle against darkness and there is no more evil...
