Question-I'm really hoping this is an exaggeration, because every telescope takes pictures through the use of light, so how is they can get up to date information?
Comment- I'm really interested in the idea set up by the quote because I feel like its a little exaggerated. Some of the other ideas presented in the reading also appear to show some "laziness" and inaccuracy. Not to insult mathematicians,but the creation of AUs (Astronomical Units) seemed a little useless since we already have exponents and scientific notation to account for large distances and values. Besides, the more we of these types of units we come up with the less accurate results become. 1x10to the 20th miles is a lot more precise than 17.5 AUs. As distances increase and technology advances, it is very likely that these units will get less and less precise which can be dangerous if we ever go into long distance space trips (provided we get to that point).
This whole idea of making larger units to make these ever growing distances easier to manage is counter productive to the purpose of math. Math ,in my mind, is meant to be precise in the answers it acquires (when done correctly). If it becomes inaccurate then it really hurts a lot of its practical uses.
