Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

skyandtelescope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 547 posts

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#161

Post by jacquesm »

pantsforbirds wrote: post #144
college_physics wrote: post #59

I don't know if this instance qualifies as one, but I think its fair to say that cosmology is the one domain of "fundamental" physics where "discrepancies" or question marks keep piling up and not really resolving. It the pattern of previous science revolutions repeats, there could come a point where reinterpreting the large existing body of knowledge using a different paradigm would explain an number of "oddities" i…

Would you bet that we'll see a paradigm shift of a similar nature to the classical physics -> quantum mechanics / relativity paradigm change, but for Cosmology in our lifetimes?

The answer to that will highly depend on how old you and the GP are.

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#162

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

freedude wrote: post #134
robg wrote: post #121

Instead of one big bang, imagine an infinite number of big bangs, all colliding on a cosmic scale in time and space. That’s not necessarily a multiverse, but it is a megaverse with universe as the old paradigm.

ok, but what caused the big bangs? ... Genesis 1:1

You've just moved the "what caused the..." question up another level and then pleaded that your new level is somehow more special than the previous level without any actual justification. It's turtles all the way down and gods all the way up.

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#163

Post by airstrike »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #151

I'm going to be very amused if the Steady State Model - an unpopular relic from the 1940s - turns out to be correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_model

Speaking of unpopular pet theories from the 1940s, I'm a fan of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

EDIT: There's also this super fun PBS Space Time episode on the theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dqtW9MslFk

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#164

Post by moffkalast »

tim-fan wrote: post #136
sebzim4500 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this says less about cosmology and more about the incredibly effectiveness of the standard model in the regime we can test directly on earth. If we compare ΛCDM to most other scientific theories it doesn't look so bad in terms of discrepancies. Certainly there are many unexplained effects in solid state physics, there isn't even an accepted explanation for why rubbing a balloon on your head makes it stick to…

Relevant xkcd: https://m.xkcd.com/2682/ And from the alt-text: "Friction-driven static electrification is familiar and fundamental in daily life, industry, and technology, but its basics have long been unknown and have continually perplexed scientists from ancient Greece to the high-tech era. [...] To date, no single theory can satisfactorily explain this mysterious but fundamental phenomenon." --Eui-Cheol Shin et. a…

Reminds me of this one https://xkcd.com/1489

"Of these four forces, there's one we don't really understand." "Is it the weak force or the strong--" "It's gravity."

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#165

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #98
college_physics wrote: post #59

I don't know if this instance qualifies as one, but I think its fair to say that cosmology is the one domain of "fundamental" physics where "discrepancies" or question marks keep piling up and not really resolving. It the pattern of previous science revolutions repeats, there could come a point where reinterpreting the large existing body of knowledge using a different paradigm would explain an number of "oddities" i…

I think this says less about cosmology and more about the incredibly effectiveness of the standard model in the regime we can test directly on earth. If we compare ΛCDM to most other scientific theories it doesn't look so bad in terms of discrepancies. Certainly there are many unexplained effects in solid state physics, there isn't even an accepted explanation for why rubbing a balloon on your head makes it stick to…

Also there's that whole "worst prediction in the history of physics" thing with the Vacuum Catastrophe.

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#166

Post by jmyeet »

Cosmology is one of those fields where I suspect we'll always be finding things that don't match with theory because we can never know nor replicate the initial state of the Universe.

There's also a lot of fundamental questions we don't have answers on. For example:

- What does space expanding actually mean? Is space stretching or is new space being created? If so, what is the mechanism for that?

- Is time a fumdanental property of the Universe or is it an emergent property?

- What are the fundamental intereptations of quantum mechanics [1]?

And so on.

The cosmic microwave background is our earliest yet observation from the Universe. Before this the Universe was really too dense and hot for radiation signatures to survive. Interestingly, we may be able to peak even earlier than that with the cosmic neutrino background [2].

But there are a ton of things about the early Universe's formation and expansion we will probably never know and will only be able to guess at with models that will always break at a certain point.

[1]: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/~doug/quantum_physics/interpre...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_neutrino_background

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#167

Post by throwaway09223 »

gwd wrote: post #143
foxyv wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there isn't even an accepted explanation for why rubbing a balloon on your head makes it stick to a wall You mean dielectric moments and static electricity? Electromagnetism is the one thing we know the most about. It's that spooky gravity junk that makes us scratch our heads. It never seems to behave quite right and doesn't mesh with all the other forces.

> You mean dielectric moments and static electricity? You're confusing what with why . My understanding is that everyone knows it has something to do with electrons collecting on the balloon; but nobody quite knows why rubbing rubber against hair causes the electrons to do that.

Exactly.

Often the gap between what and why is enormous. Humanity began curing meats to protect against microorganisms around 3000BC. The effect of what was going on was immediately observable, but it wasn't until 4500 years or so later that we discovered the why of microorganisms.

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#168

Post by pmayrgundter »

reptation wrote: post #110
Maursault wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The universe is 13.7b yo, but due to acceleration of expansion, if you could "teleport", it's actually currently 93b ly across. So we're already in a bubble within a greater universe that we'll never be able to escape This number, the age of the universe, has changed a few times since I learned to read 45 some years ago. What are the chances that this isn't really "the" universe, but what we know as the observable…

It's worth pointing out that there is a minority of physicists who don't accept the Big Bang as proven beyond doubt. An alternative theory would be a 'steady-state' universe which, as you suggest, would be much older than the ~14 BYO age. If the medium of space itself dispersed light for instance, red shifts might be observed that explain the astronomical data.

Eric Lerner is one of them and he's advocating for the idea that the BB never happened and that we'd see plenty of old galaxies with JWST. He's since updated his thoughts and there was a bunch of controversy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938153

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#169

Post by 1970-01-01 »

jfengel wrote: post #104
1970-01-01 wrote: post #95

I've often wondered if matter from another galaxy is behaving the same way it does here on the macroscopic level, but varies at the atomic level.

It's pretty clear that it's the same at the atomic level as well. The spectra look exactly like they look here. They're red-shifted, but the gaps between the peaks are exactly the same. That comes from the atomic level, the way the electrons are arranged within the atom. If something were different at the atomic level, it would surely change the characteristics of the light they give off. The only way to see what we…

Doesn't spectra come from the Rydberg constant, which is set by several other universal constants?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rydberg_constant#Alternative_e...

Re: The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

#170

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

dalbasal wrote: post #147
kibwen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather it's that the rate of expansion of the universe is accelerating, so that we're moving away from parts of it faster than its light can cover the distance to us. It will never reach us. It's actually even worse than that. Because of the accelerating expansion of the universe, over time the part of the universe that we can observe will get smaller, allowing us to see less and less of it. Eventually, all that we…

So galaxies are falling off the edge of the universe never to be seen again?

Yes, that is exactly what predicted to happen in the future - dark cold universe
Post reply on HN