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Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

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Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#51
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either we live in an unusually under dense region of the universe or our models are wrong ("new physics").

Or it's a simulation and someone keeps pushing changes to production.

All the expert software engineers agree this is the most likely explanation. Have physicists looked into this?

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#52
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, all the results have error bars. Not to mention the underlying philosophical assumptions, such that the "rate of time" has been constant across all of... time. Aka: How do we know a "year" 13 Billion "years" ago bears any resemblance to one now? What would it mean for it not to?

I’d assume that we have some notion of how the laws of physics have changed, if at all, since the Big Bang. We measure time in vibrations of a cesium isotope IIRC

No, we measure the frequency of vibrations of _light_, not of a type of atom. Specifically, it is light emitted by cesium atoms that are transitioning from one specific energy state to another specific energy state. Although this is arbitrary, it is highly reproducible and would give precisely the same measured lengths of time at any point since the big bang.

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#53
post #28

A little background based on a few articles about this plus my recollection of PBS Space Time videos on this: There are at least two ways to try to figure out the rate of expansion of the universe (which is called the Hubble Constant). • From variations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) which are the result of certain conditions in the early universe it is possible to figure out what the expansion rate should…

This, together with the endless philosophising around dark energy, dark matter and whatnot paints a pretty strong arrow towards our models having some flaws when it comes to their large-scale application. I hope to live long enough to see where we made our mistake and get a better model.

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#54
post #23

[flagged]

Almost all claims any serious scientist makes concern the observable universe. Also, these are very smart people. You'd be surprised what we can work out with a few very reasonable assumptions and the observations we made. The dismissiveness really isn't warranted.

So you're saying the scientific media is where the "dumb people" are, not the scientists themselves. While I agree, it doesn't really change the point that these sorts of headlines/articles are heliocentric in nature and mischaracterize our understanding of the universe.

IE. I'm criticizing pop-science, not science.

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#55
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either we live in an unusually under dense region of the universe or our models are wrong ("new physics").

Or it's a simulation and someone keeps pushing changes to production.

Someone keeps running gparted on our partition

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#56
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, all the results have error bars. Not to mention the underlying philosophical assumptions, such that the "rate of time" has been constant across all of... time. Aka: How do we know a "year" 13 Billion "years" ago bears any resemblance to one now? What would it mean for it not to?

I’d assume that we have some notion of how the laws of physics have changed, if at all, since the Big Bang. We measure time in vibrations of a cesium isotope IIRC

Fun fact: the Oklo reactor, a naturally occurring nuclear reactor that was active more than a billion years ago, was used to test if physical constants were the same in ancient times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#58

Hubble's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law Expansion of the universe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe : > While objects cannot move faster than light, this limitation only applies with respect to local reference frames and does not limit the recession rates of cosmologically distant objects Given that v is velocity in the opposite direction, and c is the constant reference fram…

> do we account for velocity in determining whether light traveling at c towards earth will ever reach us?

As far as I know this is not necessary because the speed of light is constant regardless of the velocity of both the source and the observer (this is Einstein's special relativity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity)

Re: Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate

#60
post #53
post #28

A little background based on a few articles about this plus my recollection of PBS Space Time videos on this: There are at least two ways to try to figure out the rate of expansion of the universe (which is called the Hubble Constant). • From variations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) which are the result of certain conditions in the early universe it is possible to figure out what the expansion rate should…

This, together with the endless philosophising around dark energy, dark matter and whatnot paints a pretty strong arrow towards our models having some flaws when it comes to their large-scale application. I hope to live long enough to see where we made our mistake and get a better model.

Almost every model we build of more trivial things based on observation always turns out to be not really right. I cannot imagine why one of the universe that has had multiple version updates in the last 100 years to not also be grossly mistaken. I also don't expect the full model to be simple or beautiful. We may be thinking wishfully based on massive extrapolation and cutting corners to suit our narrow view into the world.
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