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

Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

eso.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 189 posts

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#61

Post by nimish »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #14

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

A lot of modern science is just fishing for funding to keep running a big machine at something then having the ordained priests interpret the output

Instead of inventing something interesting like "we're able to scan the elemental composition of every galaxy within a radius within seconds" i.e. solve the problem rather than create useless papers and PR.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#62

Post by tigerlily »

swatcoder wrote: post #22
cropcirclbureau wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody dogmatically believes in this. This is not an "ideology", just some people having fun speculating existence. A far cry from religion and conspiracy nuts. Stop being so grumpy!

That's not true, as made aware to mainstream people when the Zizian murders made news. People in crisis are finding their existential grounding in these emerging belief systems about "the simulation" and other scifi-inspired ideas, are taking them exactly as seriously as novel belief systems from other eras, and are assembling into communities that collectively reinforce their beliefs. I don't think you can really pr…

It certainly does feel like there are all the right ingredients for a new, never before seen religion to emerge out of America from the elements you describe in the way you describe it, right about now.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#63

Post by xandrius »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #14

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

Everything is a non-story once it comes out.

Even the obvious things have to be proven or we would never really know.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#64

Post by antonkar »

ziddoap wrote: post #55
antonkar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were intelligent aliens billions of years ago who didn't destroy themselves, they probably build some simulations like we in a way already did with Google Earth, GTA, Minecraft, etc. The most likely is to have more and more simulations, until they'll have all the interesting ones (a simulated multiverse). They can even have a Dyson Sphere or Penrose sphere to capture the energy from a star or black hole

I'm familiar with the theory of simulated universes, though I appreciate the explanation, I am just having trouble connecting why an oxygen discovery in a distant galaxy would increase the probability of the theory.

Potentially it increases a probability of aliens a bit like us existing much earlier. We can be living in some ancestral simulation.

If our world becomes less unfree (that’s the main reason I think there is less than 50% probability we’re in a simulation, the world is too unfree for billions of high intelligent species to choose to live in it, even if it’s their ancestral one) and we start building simulations, it increases that probability, too.

I think the most utopian simulation is all of them in one - direction democratic multiversal simulation. Gives the most freedoms, including freedoms to temporarily forget you have some. To simulate our world for example if you’ll find enough people to join the party that is average or slightly less than average

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#65

Post by metalman »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #14

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

Honestly, yes, but only very briefly, as "most distant known galaxy" should show as a very odd beast indeed with the signatures for the lightest elements only, but what is hanging is that there may be even heavier elements, as the search was to detect just oxygen, confirming that, but discussing nothing else.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#66

Post by sho_hn »

nimish wrote: post #61
indoordin0saur wrote: post #14

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

A lot of modern science is just fishing for funding to keep running a big machine at something then having the ordained priests interpret the output Instead of inventing something interesting like "we're able to scan the elemental composition of every galaxy within a radius within seconds" i.e. solve the problem rather than create useless papers and PR.

The problem with building the factory for the Model T of galaxy scanners is the limited customer audience.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#68

Post by interludead »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #14

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

It's not just about finding oxygen... it's about finding it this early in the universe's history

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#69

Post by interludead »

jasonlfunk wrote: post #23

I’m always a bit skeptical about these sorts of things. Perhaps I’m just ignorant about the methods used.. but the amount of data we can get from the most distant known galaxy can’t be very much. How confident can we be that the shift in observed light or whatever is actually from the presence of Oxygen and not one of probably countless other causes, both known and unknown.

Skepticism is fair, but the confidence comes from how well we understand atomic spectra

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#70

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

nimish wrote: post #61
indoordin0saur wrote: post #14

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

A lot of modern science is just fishing for funding to keep running a big machine at something then having the ordained priests interpret the output Instead of inventing something interesting like "we're able to scan the elemental composition of every galaxy within a radius within seconds" i.e. solve the problem rather than create useless papers and PR.

Scientists have to publish a lot of papers (even useless ones) because that is how we have decided to rate them, for better or worse.

And yes, they all mostly need to fish for funding to keep their not-so-well paid jobs going.

They are hardly "ordained priests" though. I think you are trying to insult them, but not really sure what you even mean. They are pretty much by definition highly intelligent people who could earn a lot more by working for FAANG or hedge funds, but prefer to take lower paid work on the off chance they get to discover something interesting about the universe we live in. So not much like priests then.

Post reply on HN