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Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

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91–100 of 189 posts

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#91
post #85

I'm always fascinated by the posters here who insist on second-guessing the writers and the scientists who spend their whole lives studying a topic like this. No one needs to read your post fessing up to your profound ignorance and the fact that you didn't really read the link.

Science cannot be trusted anymore. Journals don't validate anything they submit. Departments are rewarded by how much money they wring out of the government, not by whether what they say is true. Next week they'll publish another paper about how they were wrong.

Also you don't sound "fascinated", so if you're complaining at least be honest about it. There are many more descriptive words than "fascinated".

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#92

It fits the theme that, according to Webb, the universe developed a lot more quickly in what we think were the first billion years... Most likely the "first billion years" were more like five billion years.

I don't know if there was just a crap ton of blue hypergiant stars in the early universe that crank through the fusion ladder in a couple million years, it wouldn't surprise me.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#94
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They are pretty much by definition highly intelligent people who could earn a lot more by working for FAANG or hedge funds

Having interviewed many failed priests of higher education, this is not true. It might have been true 50 years ago, but if you are smart and intelligent you typically do not spend 5-7 of the most productive years of your life getting a PhD.

>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.

This is exactly what priests do for religion right? Academics are ordained priests educated in the Seminary of Higher Education. You need to be granted a Doctor of Philosophy in order to join the Church of Higher Education, and then maybe a few decades of cloistered contemplation and publishing of prayers to the funding agencies will let you do something useful.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#95
post #66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So? The whole point of academia is that they aren't bound by customers. Except that's been subverted by having to kowtow to funding agencies and universities most concerned with accruing and distributing money. Defeating the whole point of having them in the first place! Free and open markets are far more efficient at distributing and allocating capital.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#96
post #93

Finding oxygen in a galaxy this young is pretty wild

Why?

probably because it depends on the star types that produce oxygen; it takes awhile until these stars form from previous in sequence. https://science.nasa.gov/universe/stars/types/#neutron-stars

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#97
post #88
post #85

I'm always fascinated by the posters here who insist on second-guessing the writers and the scientists who spend their whole lives studying a topic like this. No one needs to read your post fessing up to your profound ignorance and the fact that you didn't really read the link.

I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.

You might read the guidelines, much older than five years, about saying HN has changed, and also saying it's more like reddit.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#98
post #88
post #85

I'm always fascinated by the posters here who insist on second-guessing the writers and the scientists who spend their whole lives studying a topic like this. No one needs to read your post fessing up to your profound ignorance and the fact that you didn't really read the link.

I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.

[deleted]

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#99
post #97
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.

You might read the guidelines, much older than five years, about saying HN has changed, and also saying it's more like reddit.

I don't think I've ever been on a forum that doesn't have comments to that effect regularly.

"It was better a few years ago, it's all going to hell now, we're becoming Reddit/4Chan/Slashdot"

It's the internet forum version of "the youth has gotten lazy, it weren't like this when I were a lad"

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#100
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you could apply similar thinking to aliens, but if we actually got proof of aliens it'd still be a big deal, right?

Have you not seen the NJ UFO videos of late? Just like oxygen, they're here

No, but I've seen a _lot_ of videos from people who don't know what aircraft look like at night. And a handful of off-the-shelf drones, probably flying around in response to the first group of videos.
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