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I suppose a better restatement would be: "The universe has about as many stars as it will ever have." Still not quite about density but rather count but close

I suppose a better restatement would be: "The universe has about as many stars as it will ever have." Still not quite about density but rather count but closer!

onion2k 6y ago
Even that isn't necessarily true if big stars are destroyed to make smaller stars.
- kjeetgill 6y ago
  Agreed, that's what I meant about count vs density. It could have been: "The universe has about as much star as it will ever have." That's just confusing, haha.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    The top comment already has the term that everyone keeps glossing over: stellar mass density. The universe has about as much stellar mass density as it will ever have. This isn't that hard.
    - skrebbel 6y ago
      That headline is both correct and hard to understand for people who are not into astronomy. I.e. pretty bad for a popular science article. This is super hard.
      - alxlaz 6y ago
        On the other hand, this one is incorrect, so it's a bad trade-off no matter how you put it. Besides, the meaning of "stellar mass density" ought to be obvious to anyone who's gone through high-school level science classes, even if they're not "into" astronomy. Even if that weren't the case, it's pretty easy to look up a simple explanation of the term. I doubt someone who isn't willing to put even that tiny amount of effort into it would even bother reading popular science articles in the first place. To put it another way: it takes less time and effort to figure it out if you don't know what it means that it takes to even read the article. The overlap between "people reading the article" and "people who don't know what SMD is, can't figure it out from the name, and aren't willing to look it up" is unlikely to be too high. Optimizing for lazy readers isn't good scientific journalism, it just makes the experience worse for interested readers -- the ones who are willing to do things like pay for a subscription, for example. It's a bad trade-off to make.
- sullyj3 6y ago
  Would one expect the average size to change?

I suppose a better restatement would be: "The universe has about as many stars as it will ever have." Still not quite about density but rather count but closer!

onion2k 6y ago

Even that isn't necessarily true if big stars are destroyed to make smaller stars.

kjeetgill 6y ago
Agreed, that's what I meant about count vs density. It could have been: "The universe has about as much star as it will ever have." That's just confusing, haha.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  The top comment already has the term that everyone keeps glossing over: stellar mass density. The universe has about as much stellar mass density as it will ever have. This isn't that hard.
  - skrebbel 6y ago
    That headline is both correct and hard to understand for people who are not into astronomy. I.e. pretty bad for a popular science article. This is super hard.
    - alxlaz 6y ago
      On the other hand, this one is incorrect, so it's a bad trade-off no matter how you put it. Besides, the meaning of "stellar mass density" ought to be obvious to anyone who's gone through high-school level science classes, even if they're not "into" astronomy. Even if that weren't the case, it's pretty easy to look up a simple explanation of the term. I doubt someone who isn't willing to put even that tiny amount of effort into it would even bother reading popular science articles in the first place. To put it another way: it takes less time and effort to figure it out if you don't know what it means that it takes to even read the article. The overlap between "people reading the article" and "people who don't know what SMD is, can't figure it out from the name, and aren't willing to look it up" is unlikely to be too high. Optimizing for lazy readers isn't good scientific journalism, it just makes the experience worse for interested readers -- the ones who are willing to do things like pay for a subscription, for example. It's a bad trade-off to make.
sullyj3 6y ago
Would one expect the average size to change?