Heraclitus and Astronomy

It is remarkable that when speaking of events billions of years in the past, the use of verbal tenses here is so very muddled. This galaxy obviously no longer exists as such. We are imagining a steady state of galactic evolution for no apparent reason. Take heed of the words of Heraclitus some three millennia ago on this subject.   How has the lawful evolution of star formation changed and why?

Artist’s impression of the monster galaxy COSMOS-AzTEC-1. This galaxy is located 12.4 billion light-years away and is forming stars 1000 times more rapidly than our Milky Way Galaxy. ALMA observations revealed dense gas concentrations in the disk, and intense star formation in those concentrations.
Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Re: The spotlight of attention is more like a strobe, say researchers

The issue of perception as a discrete phenomenon has far reaching consequences. In the revolutionary mathematical work of Bernhard Riemann's Hypothesen, the distinction of a discrete versus a continuous manifold was paramount. It is the human imagination that projects continuity in spatial relationships. This is a unique quality of the human mind that is at the basis of a principle of universal communication. The ability to conceive of a concrete infinity that subsumes the discrete is central to our creative power. That is the true source of scientific progress.