From: SMTP%"lewin@space.mit.edu" 3-MAY-1995 14:42:40.27 To: DEBATE CC: Subj: for your bulletin board Date: Wed, 3 May 95 13:03:49 EDT From: Walter H.G. Lewin To: debate@grossc.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: for your bulletin board Cc: lewin The debate was wonderful in that I met many old friends; some I had not seen for ages! I did not learn any physics, but that is not what I came for. Both "debaters" did very well in my opinion; Don's "scale" (Ed Fennimore's idea) was very funny and effective. However, once you accept (as he does) that SGR and GRB are related, the scale tips ALL THE WAY (not just a little) in favor of a galactic origin of the GRB, and NO further arguments are needed. The halo model requires a handful of rather bizarre and ad-hoc assumptions to explain the observed isotropic distribution of GRB. The assumptions are so contrived, that the model is bound to be wrong. No such bizarre assumptions have to be made if one adopts the cosmological distance scale. Bohdan's punch line was terrific: the GRB sources moved from 100 pc (1991) to 1 kpc (1993) to 100 kpc (1995). By the year 2000 their distance will be 1 Gpc, but they will still be "galactic" according to some! So it goes ... walter lewin Yes you may publish this on bulletin boards or elsewhere.