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The James Webb Space Telescope is finding too many early galaxies

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431–440 of 547 posts

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

#431

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

I love this theory because it's both mindblowing and yet, when you think about it, weirdly makes sense. Assuming time travel etc, of course.

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

#432

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…

not surprising imo, because of how limited our observational capabilities are. we'd probably progress quicker if we could look at far away stuff up close instead of from billions of light years away.

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

#433

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

My favorite theory is that the universe is finite, some sort of (hyper)sphere or -torus. If we could just look far enough out there we would see our own galaxy What would be even cooler is if it was warped like a moebius strip in a higher dimension, so that when we look out there, everything is mirrored from "our" reality :-D

For all we know it might be - or it might actually be infinite - but the trouble is that we're limited by what we can see / detect, which is in turn limited by the speed of light.

Another commenter asked something like, what if the universe is much bigger than the observable universe, because everything beyond that 'border' has redshifted out of reach - or hasn't reached us yet / never will, because it's moving away faster than the speed of light.

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

#434

This was predicted by astronomer Stacy McGaugh on his super interesting blog as a natural consequence of modified Newtonian dynamics ( https://tritonstation.com/2022/01/03/what-jwst-will-see/ ). McGaugh came to support MOND over dark matter reluctantly for just such reasons—MOND routinely predicts things in advance that dark matter struggles to justify ex post facto, usually by adding additional moving parts to the m…

I've been out of the loop for a while. Can MOND satisfactorily explain gravitational lensing?

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

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not, because ice has a smooth surface and that probably the surface layer melts a bit because your shoes are warm? That would be my reasoning, but it likely seems to be wrong, well why?

The usual hypothesis is that a microscopic layer of the surface melts, not because your shoes are warm, but because of the pressure. But the pressure is not enough to do that. That said, as anyone who has been in icy conditions can attest, it is clear that ice at ~0° C is vastly more slippery than at, say, -20°C.

", it is clear that ice at ~0° C is vastly more slippery than at, say, -20°C."

There is nothing more slippery in my experience, than rain on the street, that just turned frozen. But ice at -20°C is usually older and has not such a smooth surface anymore, so hard to compare in non lab settings.

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

#436
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be bright white?

Any straight line you draw from earth to any direction in the sky will then reach a star.

Which is insanely far away and all light coming from there will have diminished in energy enough to be barely visible?

Inadequate explanation. Even if the universe was a closed box with perfectly reflecting borders, what you would actually see in the sky is something like an average brightness of the entire universe with some fluctuations.

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

#437
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me, as a layperson, if MOND was hypothesized first, it would be the dominant theory. It’s so elegant and simple with so much explanatory power. However, because it was hypothesized much later, the fact it matches past predictions is given no weight, despite its simplicity. I think this is a bit of a mistake. I believe that simplicity itself is evidence. Dark matter theory is starting to feel like the epic…

If MOND completely described observable phenomenon it would supplant dark matter, but it doesn't. MOND still requires dark matter, just less of it. Or, to quote Milgrom, "some standard matter in some form that has not been detected"[1]. Which, IMHO, is nearly isomorphic to DM as far as statements go. So until we figure out what the missing mass is, MOND is widely viewed as an unnecessary complication. There is missin…

Problem that I see with dark matter is that it is unfalsifiable.

If you can have arbitrary amounts of dark matter in arbitrary positions - how can you falsify that?

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

#438
post #410

Articles like these make me want to stop doing everything and isolate in the basement for several months to study physics. Then I realize I have a family to feed and elderly parents to take care for. Sigh, so many beautiful mysteries in the world, and only one life. edit: A friend told me germans have the word "Sehnsucht" to describe such a feeling. So I guess it might be somewhat universal.

I have kind of done that for last few months. Chat GPT helped immensely with that. I recently even asked if it's worth it to go back to academia. Still exploring that. A few things that I recently understood or read about. - Fermi Paradox - with help of chatgpt https://imgur.com/a/LuVV6iK - How the age of universe was calculated. - Redshift - How age of solar system was calculated. I previously thought just like the…

Anton Petrov regularly covers topics like these and encourages sharing with people interested in space and sciences.

https://youtube.com/@whatdamath

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

#439
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but I imagine doing it in a country house with a table looking out into a lovely garden, and a mountain path nearby for long walks thinking about things.

I'm sure there's a catchy phrase for that kind of thing, intellectual cottagecore maybe?

Wanderlust

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

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have kind of done that for last few months. Chat GPT helped immensely with that. I recently even asked if it's worth it to go back to academia. Still exploring that. A few things that I recently understood or read about. - Fermi Paradox - with help of chatgpt https://imgur.com/a/LuVV6iK - How the age of universe was calculated. - Redshift - How age of solar system was calculated. I previously thought just like the…

Chances are significant that some explanations received are just not true as chatgpt does that too, unfortunately.

Not all of it is from chatgpt. It's a good starting point, and essentially tells me what to google and how to read further. When I get something, I anyway want to read more so would google around the topic. The ability to ask a cross question is what makes learning easier. If the answer is not true, i will end up finding that out anyway from google or other science publications.
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