Talk:Universe

Size of the observable universe

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the "observable universe" can only be up to 13.75 billion light years because that's the age of the universe. You can't see 15 billion light years away because nothing existed 15 billion light years. Yet on the Universe wiki it says, "and that the diameter of the observable universe is at least 93 billion light years or 8.80×1026 metres."

Should "observable universe" be removed from that sentence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.134.174 (talk) 03:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

No, you are mistaken. This is a common source of confusion. While special relativity does state that no object in the universe can move faster than the speed of light, there is no such constraint on the expansion of space itself. Thus, two very distant objects can expand away from each other at a speed faster than that of the speed of light. Please read the article on metric expansion of space for a better idea of how this process takes place. Also, do not confuse years and light years. A light year is a unit of distance, not time. Thus, the universe is 13.75 billion years old while the diameter of the observable universe is ~93 billion light years. The sentence in question is accurate and should not be changed. — Siddharth Prabhu (talk) 07:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

This relates to Proper Distance, which (roughly!) means, "the distance something we saw emit light 13 billion years ago, would be at right now". This makes the "proper distance" to an object a bit larger the apparent distance for objects that are relatively close to us (receding at the speed of the Hubble flow), and _much_ farther for objects that are right at the edge of the observable universe (because the expansion of space introduces nonlinearities when you go back that far, as you have to use the true metric expansion of space formula instead of a small-changes approximation).

If you can think of a way to more clearly state this in the article, by all means suggest changes here. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 09:32, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Size of entire universe missing

while article "Observable Universe" contains a guess. --93.220.59.59 (talk) 17:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The Universe article says "immensely large and possibly infinite". That's pretty much all anyone's been able to say with certainty. There have been many attempts to look for repeating patterns or other artifacts in the cosmic microwave background that would indicate a closed, finite shape, but those studies all generally end up saying "at least size X and possibly larger", which means they did not find the correlations they were looking for. What "size X" ends up being depends on their assumptions about geometry, and the specific statistical threshold (the amount of correlation their analysis assumes might occur by chance), so these values will disagree widely from paper to paper.

The Observable universe does quote one of these studies (which claims a minimum of 78 Gly), but notes that the paper's results are disputed. I'm not sure any specific study should be mentioned at all (just the fact that many such studies have been done, perhaps with a sampling of the most widely-cited studies' results).

Long story short, at present nobody has an answer better than "somewhere between 'what we see' and 'infinite'". --Christopher Thomas (talk) 20:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the topic deserves more than a vague sentence in the Universe article. The more specific Observable_universe has two paragraphs about it at the end of Observable_universe#The_universe_versus_the_observable_universe. I was actually referring to the first paragraph, which says "10^23 times larger". --93.220.59.59 (talk) 23:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

That first paragraph's conclusion depends on some very flimsy assumptions (the exact nature of cosmic inflation is unknown). Depending on what assumptions you make, you could start with a finite initial volume of some chosen size (Planck length, photon wavelength at the temperature you assume inflation starts (usually below the GUT scale), or something else) and an assumed expansion rate to get a final value (as Guth did), or you could assume that the phase transition happens everywhere at once (giving an answer that depends on how big you assume the pre-inflationary universe was), or you can assume that the phase transition happens unevenly (giving you a chaotic inflation scenario where more space is still being added now). So, once again, I think "anywhere from 'what we see' to 'infinite'" is about as good a summary as can be given at this time. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 02:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed answers. Maybe some summary can be put in the article. The question about the size of the universe seems very natural to me, so it should be given more room. --93.220.49.240 (talk) 23:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's worth considering. To expedite that, I've pinged the Astronomy WikiProject to get a few more people looking at the topic (I'm not in a position to overhaul that section at present). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Energy

If you click on the word "energy" in the opening statement, the linked article defines it as "the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems".

The opening statement of this article defines the universe as "the totality of everything that exists". Then by definition there are no other physical systems for it to do work on, so the universe can not be said to "have energy". Either that or the definition in the "Energy" article is wrong.

Gcsnelgar (talk) 23:47, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The energy within a closed or isolated system can still be measured/defined. Details are at Energy#Applications of the concept of energy (and elsewhere). Among other things, any given portion of the system can be analyzed with respect to its ability to perform work on the rest of the system, or to perform work if transplanted to some other arbitrary system. Internal energy gives a more rigorous description of this.

There's a reason the lede of Energy says "often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work", rather than "is defined as": that definition only works for certain types of well-behaved system (albeit ones with which most people are familiar).

Within the observable universe, most of its mass/energy is in the form of dark energy (suspected to be vacuum energy, followed by dark matter, followed by the rest mass of the normal baryonic matter within it, followed by radiant energy (photons) and thermal energy (kinetic energy of individual atoms and ions). The mass and/or energy invested in each of these is straightforward to define and measure. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 08:02, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The weasel word "believe".

Regarding my objection of the term "believe" and its inappropriate use in this article...

In his book, The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe (1992), Eric J. Lerner states (emphasis mine):

From theologians to physicists to novelists, it is widely believed that the Big Bang theory supports Christian concepts of a creator. In February 1989, for example, the front-page article of the New York Times Book Review argued that scientists and novelists were returning to God, in large part through the influence of the Big Bang.

Therefore, the weasel word "believe"/"believed" has become something that is often used by religious fundamentalists and pseudoscience proponents to claim that mainstream science is on no firmer ground than theology – and one only needs to look at various science forums where creationists claim that "the theory of Evilution [sic] is a belief/religion", and also where "Electric Universe" pseudoscientists claim that "the Big Bang theory is a belief/religion". If we use this bastard term "believe" in a modern scientific context, it will easily be seen by such individuals as a code word for a statement of faith, and by doing so we are only supplying them with ammunition to use against mainstream science; it should only be used when referring to ancient science of Aristotle, et al. Modern science requires appropriate qualifications for statements which are made, whether they are proofs, hard evidence, theoretical possibilities, or hypothetical conjectures.

For example, the English language is rich with more appropriate and encyclopedic terms to use in a scientific context instead of "believe": anticipate, assume, assumption, ascertain, conceive, conclude, contemplate, conjecture, consider, deliberate, deduce, deem, discern, estimate, figure, hypothesize, infer, generalize, posit, predicate, predict, postulate, presume, regard, reckon, speculate, suppose, surmise, suggest, think, thought, theorize, or understand.

Furthermore, using the term "it is believed", or similar phrases in a scientific context of an encyclopedia, is lame and it ends up reading like a bloody essay from an 8th grader in high school! – IVAN3MAN (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary - I am a scientist. We use phrases like "believed to be" and "thought to be" all the time, because they most accurately reflect scientific views. Science isn't about certainty: if you're certain, then you can't be convinced by new evidence. Science is about forming the best hypotheses possible given available, incomplete evidence. These hypotheses can and do change with time. That's why scientists hedge, and use phrases like this (especially for cosmology, where we can't go out and poke the relevant objects with a stick). I object to your changes to the Universe article, and I object to your similar changes to the Dark matter article, on these grounds. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 20:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur. IVAN3MAN's "believe" edits here and elsewhere should be reverted. — Aldaron • T/C 22:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Sorry, IVAN3MAN, I respect your motives, but your changes come off as a silly word game. This is a scientific article, and in scientific writing the word "believe" refers to rational evidence-based scientific judgement, not "...a code word for a statement of faith". Anyway I don't think any creationists will be won over by larding the text with pompous, pretentious, polysyllabic synonyms for "believe". If you are concerned that people will think that some of the statements in this article are based on religious belief, the best way to prevent that is to source each statement with an inline citation to reliable scientific literature, such as a scientific journal. Which is what we should be doing anyway. --Chetvorno^TALK 22:47, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I just want to say that the editors on the other articles have not objected to any of my edits, and also that some have even edited out other weasel words that I've missed.

P.S. Let's leave it at that – we don't want a silly "edit war" now, do we? – IVAN3MAN (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Christopher Thomas's statement above is yet more evidence (if more is needed at this point:P) of just how far removed from the "real world" of social media and viral memes most scientists are. I completely understand why scientists hedge their statements, and I suspect that everyone else here does as well. IVAN3MAN's attempts to remove "believe" and other such words from articles like this aren't based on the thought that scientists are not being definite enough, it's about how the uneducated public perceive words. Phrases like "scientists believe" and "just a theory" have been tarnished by various anti-science religious leaders and their cronies (such as the Discovery Institute - which runs a "scientific" creationist museum meant to brainwash children into believing that the Earth is 6000 years old) and conspiracy theorists like Richard Hoagland.

There are a good many commonly used phrases that scientists in various fields use either internally or in outreach articles that simply put should never be used when talking to the public. "Scientists believe" is one of those phrases. Once phrases like these have been tarnished, and that tarnish has spread through social media, it has proved virtually impossible to reclaim them to their previous meanings. Each time the public hears or reads "scientists believe", they don't hear "a near consensus has been reached on this topic by the vast majority of experts in this field". No, they hear (best case scenario) "scientists don't have a good understanding of this topic".

I'm continually surprised at how many scientists seem to be wholly ignorant of this new(ish) reality. Gopher65_talk 04:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The correct word is "believe", whether or not you (or others) have trouble understanding what it means. Wikiepedia contains other excellent articles on epistemology, and the history and process of scientific discovery, which you can link from the word "believe" if you wish, but it is not the policy of this encyclopedia (nor should it be) to explain, within each article, everything everyone might possibly need to know to avoid misunderstandings born of ignorance or miseducation. And in any case substituting a thesaurus of scientific-sounding — and actually less accurate — terms for the correct ones is not going to help your problem.

Concur that believe is the right word to use. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for promoting anything so we should not be trying to bend articles in pursuit of some agenda. It is not a weasel word in this context. Straightforward simple language saying it as it is summarizing the sources is the goal, not trying to convert some fundamentalists. Dmcq (talk) 09:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

What you're suggesting is that Wikipedia ignore changes in the meaning of commonly used words. Would you use "aw(e)ful" to describe something wonderful? How often do you see the word "gay" used in Wikipedia to mean "happy"? The meaning of words change over time, and any encyclopedia has to adapt to that change. Regardless of how you choose to use the word "believe", the meaning has changed in common usage. That cannot be ignored. Wikipedia articles are written for the masses, not for experts who understand the precise meaning of such words in a particular scientific context. Gopher65_talk 13:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I just had a look at some dictionaries on the web and they most certainly do not agree with you. Citation needed that you are right and the dictionaries are wrong. Dmcq (talk) 13:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, believe (sense 1. [with clause] [no object]) means "have religious faith"; according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, believe (sense 1.a) means "to have a firm religious faith". I'll also refer you to Wikipedia's Belief article and especially the section on "How beliefs are formed". Furthermore, here's a good example of why we need to differentiate between scientific, logical reasoning and emotionally inspired beliefs: Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World. – IVAN3MAN (talk) 17:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You should read that belief article (and the definitions) more carefully. — Aldaron • T/C 18:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

And you should read the "How beliefs are formed" section more carefully, dude. – IVAN3MAN (talk) 18:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Big dictionaries give all sorts of meanings and we already know that religious people believe stuff. That form of believe though was the fourth example in the Oxford dictionary. It had religion as the first one in Merriam-Webster but it also has 'The scientists believed the reports.' and 'Many people seem to believe that theory, but I find it hard to believe.' as the first and second of the list of examples below and in both cases believe in the religious sense does not appear for uses of the transitive verb, only for the intransitive form as in 'I believe' or 'he believes'. They don't seem to consider 'He believes in God' as a transitive form and in science scientists don't believe in things they just believe things. Some people believe in God. A scientist may believe a report or theory. Dmcq (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘My take: "Thought to be" is just as simple and eloquent as "believed to be", and no one will misinterpret it. So why not use "thought to be"? Going through IVAN3MAN's edits: (1) For the last one, where there is no serious doubt, I would prefer to drop the expression altogether: "[Besides gravity,] the other three forces are believed to play a negligible role in determining structures at the level of planets, stars, [and] galaxies". By analogy, no one would ever say "the mass of an electron is believed to be much less than the mass of a proton". (2) For the first one, "The universe is believed to be mostly composed of dark energy and dark matter," --> "The hypothesis is that the universe is composed mostly of dark energy and dark matter". I don't like the change. The new wording is awkward and confusing. I would say "The universe is thought to be". (3) "The Higgs boson (as yet unobserved) is believed to confer mass" --> "The Higgs boson (as yet unobserved) is hypothesized to confer mass". I don't like either of these. The question is whether the Higgs boson exists. If it exists, it certainly confers mass. I would say "The Higgs boson (as yet unobserved) confers mass." The parenthetical gets across the doubt. (4) "Newton believed that an infinite space uniformly filled with matter would cause infinite forces and instabilities..." was changed to "hypothesized", but it seems to me that "Newton realized" is much better than either of those. (5) "The theory of special relativity is believed to hold throughout the universe" was changed to "is generalized to hold", which is an unusual and confusing wording. I would change to "is thought to hold". --Steve (talk) 14:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The point is that (almost) no-one would misinterpret "believed to be" as well.TR 15:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

A couple of 'is thought to's where things aren't quite so clear wouldn't harm just to have a bit of variety but I think believe is best for the bigger things where there isn't enough evidence and yet most people believe they are true. Thought to implies a little less belief than believed to me as in I think xyz but I could easily be wrong as opposed to I believe xyz and I'd be rather surprised if I was wrong. Dmcq (talk) 15:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Either Steve's or Dmcq's approach will be a considerable improvement, though I'm inclined towards using "believe" unless there is a clear reason not to (e.g. when we can document "assumed" or "accepted" from from the details of the case). The important thing is to undo IVAN3MAN's edits. — Aldaron • T/C 16:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I just happened to look through the "Talk" page of the Dark matter article and I came across this section: Dark Matter and Invisible Pink Unicorns.

The disparaging comments by the individual who opened that section clearly illustrates exactly what I meant above and the kind of creationist comedians that we have to deal with; note where he says: "Those who have the religious faith to believe in life existing by random probability are far more religious than I am."

Make of that what you will, dudes. – IVAN3MAN (talk) 17:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I have. It is irrelevant. Have a look at Conservapedia and you'll find people saying special relativity is wrong as it supports moral relativism. You're not going to get them suddenly saying yes we've been wrong all along, Genesis is a moral fairytale, just because of making the wording here strange. Dmcq (talk) 18:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The problem is not with the word "believe" (which is perfectly scientific-- I think of Feynman saying "How strong do we believe this?"), but rather because most of the time (except possibly with syllogisms and analytic proposition where knowledge is sure), it goes without saying, and adding it to contingent-fact knowledge (there are no elephants in Earth orbit), doesn't help. All scientific "knowledge" that doesn't involve definition (and even some that does, if the definition isn't 100% accepted) is also belief. Some beliefs have more evidence behind them than others, but all of it has a bit of uncertainty. You can even argue that 100% certain things are also believed, as much as I believe 1 + 1 = 2, which is true by definition, but it still counts as a sort of belief of mine in the definitions.

Because of this, we ordinarily OMIT this word belief as redundant, or else we'd have to stick it in every sentence in this encyclopedia. I believe we'd have to stick it in every sentence in this encyclopedia ;).

Yes, "believe" is still used as a synonym for "theory" or "hypothesis" (especially in places like an encyclopedia) because the latter words are scary and not terribly well-defined, either. If you never like to use the word "belief" in its naked form, fearing that it will be mistaken for a weasel-term, then you can use "present consensus belief" for things where there is still some doubt among some reasonable, but small, fraction of professionals. "The concensus belief is that the Moon was formed by a planet impacting with the early Earth." For things like the electron is believed to be less massive than the proton, there's no point in even doing that. Yes, it's a concensus belief, but not worth using the words. Just state it as fact.

For beliefs in science that there's a lot of argument about, one can avoid the word "belief" entirely and talk of "widely held theories" and leading-theories (it is a concensus belief in medicine that HIV is the cause of the AIDS epidemic), but should probably reserve this language for stuff where even pros disagree (not true of AIDS and HIV). It's consensus-belief that high LDL levels contribute to atherosclerosis. It's a widely-held theory. It is NOT a "widely held theory" that men walked on the moon (rather than it being a hoax). We all believe they did, except a few nuts, but none of that needs be mentioned. It's a fact. End. SBHarris 18:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say, though I'd hope that eventually a more compact word would come along than the phrase "consensus belief".

I do have to take issue with your statement that only a "few nuts" don't believe humans walked on Luna. The numbers stated at Moon landing conspiracy theories are lower than what I've read, but lets say they're accurate. About 28% of Russians believe in the moon hoax, and between 6 and 20 percent of Americans believe in it. That adds up to ~45 million people at the low end of the range. And that's just in 2 countries. Unfortunately a great many people are ill-informed. This vast group of people (many of whom aren't dumb, just misinformed) is the reason why I think using words like 'belief' in an un-couched way is a bad idea. Such people are both moderately intelligent and curious enough to want to learn more (and thus might come here), but they're also extremely credulous when it comes to any form of anti-authoritarianism. Since they see all scientists as 1) government funded (and thus linked to corruption: "them's my stolden tax dollors!"), and 2) "experts" talking out of their asses ("them scientists ain't no bedder then me when it comes to thinken!"), that anti-authoritarianism instinct comes into play. It's best not to encourage those tendencies in them by rubbing phrases like "scientists believe in the big bang" in their noses. Especially when they would read that line "Scientists believe in the Big Bang just the way you believe in God". Gopher65_talk 03:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's why I qualified my statement (or meant to) as being "fraction of professionals." It really doesn't matter what the hoi poloi believe about the JFK assassination or the moon landing or collapse of buildings on 9/11 or atherosclerosis or quantum field theory, because they don't know enough about these things without years of study (at least some of it academic, whether they hold a sheepskin or not) to have their opinions count. Hopefully we can also avoid the no true Scotsman fallicy by not DEFINING professionals or academics as whether or not they hold to the mainstream line. One should (for example) be able to tell if somebody is a real climatologist independently of whether or not they believe that anthropogenic global warming is and will be a major problem.

Finally, I certainly agree that we should avoid the "believe in" phraseology as much as we can, since it sounds too much like faith which is not based on demonstrable evidence. I might believe in the fact that Jesus was resurected and personally cares about me, but I don't have the glowing email from him to show you, if you don't believe it. Evidence is lacking. (And in fact, personally, that's WHY I don't-- I figure if Jesus cared about me personally he could send me glowing email that couldn't be erased. Or knock on my door like the JWs or Mormons, you know?). But I can show you all kinds of reason to believe that the Big Bang happened. Explain those H/He ratios, and that CMB from first principles, otherwise! SBHarris 16:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And thats why the phrase "believe in" is not used in this sense.TR 06:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Saying they believe that most of the mass of the universe is in the form of dark energy and dark matter though is okay. It definitely is not something we can state as fact. They don't believe 'in' dark matter though, that implies giving up any critical faculties and stopping being a sceptic. The closest you have there is scientists believing in is that a theory should be beautiful rather than a mishmash and believing in the power of mathematics to describe the physical world. Dmcq (talk) 11:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I agree. But "believe" translates to "believe in" for nearly everyone. From the point of view of our readers, the following two phrases are completely synonymous:

• "Scientists believe that the Big Bang happened."

• "Scientists believe in the Big Bang."

Surely you can see how our readers could be confused by those similar sentences, even though you and I understand them to be different? Gopher65_talk 14:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's assuming they have developed their critical facilities enough to appreciate the difference and yet that they haven't got the words or understanding of text to tell the difference in what's written. For people who can't tell the difference would it really matter whether we wrote believe in when we meant believe? Would they know the difference between think that and believe in? A person who believes in God's existence thinks that God exists. Sticking in long convoluted other ways of expressing things does not help in the least. Personally I am very happy if an article on a theme like this which should be very accessible uses 8th grader vocabulary, I see it as a big plus point. Believe in and believe are pretty common as in I believe in my wife compared to I believe my wife so I don't think it is distinction lost on most people. Dmcq (talk) 15:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Gopher, I don't think that the majority of the population would think that I am making a religious statement if I say that I believe them. In fact, pretty much everybody would understand that I am saying that I think that they speak the truth. Apparantly, pretty much everybody understands what the transitive verb "believe" means.TR 16:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, you mean like this, Mr. Rias?

P.S. I've fixed the faulty links in my post above. – IVAN3MAN (talk) 23:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That is the intransitive form of believe, just like believe in. Dmcq (talk) 23:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, my university professor taught me this. – IVAN3MAN (talk) 23:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This would be far more productive conversation with something more specific in mind. I think we all understand that the word "believe" should be understood differently in different contexts. I don't think anyone here would object to the change "The mass of the proton is believed to be larger than the mass of the electron." Likewise, I seriously doubt that anyone here would have a problem with "Based on detailed analysis of astronomical observations, physicists believe that the universe contains dark matter." So, Dmcq or TimothyRias, can you please help focus the conversation by pointing to a specific real sentence in this or another article where the word "believe" cannot be avoided except by sacrificing clarity or accuracy (at least sacrificing it a little bit). :-) --Steve (talk) 00:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with a number of believes being changed to think for instance. The problem was caused by saying all uses of believe had to be removed and sticking in words like hypothesized instead. The language should be straightforward and both believe and think are straightforward and having a bit variety is good for ease of reading. I see the business about religious people thinking it is a religious belief and therefore all uses of belief must be removed as not something to be worried about. If some people think the special theory of relativity promotes moral relativism that's their problem as far as I'm concerned. I'd prefer to just cater to the people who come to an article for a bit of enlightenment rather than write for those who only read things to find snippets they don't like about it. Straightforward simple and easy to read and understand and well written language with no silliness is what I want Dmcq (talk) 01:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Specific example: In one of the captions in this article we have:

"The universe is believed to be mostly composed of dark energy and dark matter,..."

Here "believed" is a very good representation of the status of this hypothesis. All empirical evidence points in its direction, so "thought to" is too weak. Yet there is no satisfactory theoretical explanation for nature of the dark energy, so (almost) nobody excludes the possibility that something more unexpected is going on. Consequently, the simple "The universe is mostly composed of dark energy and dark matter,..." inaccurately overstates the status. Of course, you could probably find a more convoluted phrasing that also accurately represents the situation, but it would almost automatically be less clear and concise.TR 08:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

While I'd still prefer another word, if we're going with Steve's compromise (which is a decent suggestion), that would be an example of a proper use of "believe". Here's an example of an odd use of the word:

• "Of the four fundamental interactions, gravitation is dominant at cosmological length scales; that is, the other three forces are believed to play a negligible role in determining structures at the level of planets, stars, galaxies and larger-scale structures."

If you remove believed from that sentence and say, "...the other three forces play a negligible role...", it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence. There are no physicists anywhere who think that the roundish shape of Earth is dominately caused by, say, the strong nuclear force. Not even the crackpots think that. Gopher65_talk 14:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree that the words "are believed to" are completely superfluous. I have tweaked the sentence accordingly. (An additional issue was that the sentence could be interpreted as saying that the structure of planets and stars are only determined by gravity. That, of course, is non-sense since the other forces are relevant as well since they are responsible for preventing that these structures collapse to black holes.)TR 15:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the spoken Version

The spoken version of this article is NOT computer generated, but human read by myself. Marmenta (talk) 04:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)