Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site astrovax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!wls
From: wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok)
Newsgroups: net.astro.expert
Subject: Re: quasars and the history of the universe
Message-ID: <350@astrovax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-May-84 20:40:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: astrovax.350
Posted: Fri May 18 20:40:21 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 19-May-84 06:58:18 EDT
References: <291@utastro.UUCP>, <2130@brl-vgr.ARPA>, <346@astrovax.UUCP> <2156@brl-vgr.ARPA>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
Lines: 20

> Two reasons for preferring the nearby theory of quasars to the cosmic
> one are:
> 	(a) The intrinsic luminosity is reasonable if they are nearby,
> 	    but really hard to explain if they are far away;
> 	(b) The periods of pulsars are hard to explain for far-away
> 	    pulsars, but admit of simpler explanations if the objects
> 	    are nearby.
> Neither of these is a decisive argument (unless one can disprove the
> existence of neutron stars), but they make the nearby quasar theorists
> feel more comfortable with their position.

What do pulsars have to do with this?  Pulsars are entirely different objects
than quasars.  For example, quasars are distributed isotropically around the
sky while pulsars are observed to be concentrated into the plane of our galaxy.
Indeed, nobody (at least that I am aware of) is claiming that pulsars are any
large distance away but instead at typical distances inside our galaxy, several
to tens of kiloparsecs.
-- 
Bill Sebok			Princeton University, Astrophysics
{allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls