Science
Related: About this forumToo Late to Apologize! James Webb Telescope New study just made the "crisis in cosmology" WORSE...
Instead of tidy, predictable early galaxies, Webb is revealing massive, surprisingly mature systems forming far earlier than standard models allow. These findings dont just tweak the timelinethey pressure the very framework of dark matter, dark energy, and cosmic evolution. If galaxies grew this big this fast, then something fundamental is missing from the equations.
The crisis in cosmology isnt about one anomaly. Its about pattern after pattern refusing to fit. The expansion rate disagrees depending on how you measure it. Early structures look too advanced. Simulations struggle to keep up with observation. The universe isnt behaving the way the textbooks promised. So what happens next? Do physicists patch the modelor rethink it entirely? The answers unfolding now could redefine the story of space, time, and everything in between.
QueerDuck
(1,349 posts)Its only a "crisis" for the people who wrote the current textbooks... for everyone else, its a wide-open door to a Nobel Prize.
Personally, I think that this is the most exciting time to be in the field since the discovery of Dark Energy in the late 90s. As The European Space Agency points out, "crisis" in science is often the precursor to a paradigm shift.
It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out and what we learn in the process.
🎶 The more we know! 💫🌠
niyad
(131,159 posts)William Seger
(12,349 posts)They have a special way of treating "mainstream" science (i.e. real science) as if it's a competing religion taught by false prophets, rather than just the most logical, but ever evolving, explanation we currently have for the credible facts, as best we know them.
Girard442
(6,855 posts)Don't listen to me. I know nothing.
AZ8theist
(7,202 posts)It's just another hypothesis to explain the univese's existance.
VMA131Marine
(5,229 posts)The Cosmic Microwave Background is very real and is effectively the glow of the Universe from 380,000 years after the Big Bang. This is about reconciling the expansion rate of the early universe and the universe today with General Relativity.
usonian
(24,414 posts)The universe stubbornly refuses to conform to our sophisticated models. And dark matter? Give me a break.
How about the old fashioned way?
Observation first, theory later?

Girard442
(6,855 posts)3Hotdogs
(15,226 posts)MiHale
(12,858 posts)Layzeebeaver
(2,237 posts)Now THAT'S a crisis if I've ever seen one!
Marcuse
(8,891 posts)
Historic NY
(39,893 posts)We are insignificant among the thousands of systems out there.
edhopper
(37,239 posts)just the continuing refining of what we know about the Universe. The main facts remain, the Big Bang, the expanding Universe, Dark Matter. But the numbers attached will change and shift as we learn more.
That the expansion rate is different depending how we measure it is a good thing that will lead to a better understanding.
Wounded Bear
(64,076 posts)Layzeebeaver
(2,237 posts)Oh wait, or is it the pseudo-science reporters?
Wounded Bear
(64,076 posts)StarryNite
(12,079 posts)it has all the answers to everything.
Clouds Passing
(7,684 posts)LymphocyteLover
(9,666 posts)multigraincracker
(37,295 posts)No beginning and no end to either. That means it is all happening infinite times and places. When we get to the end of this universe now, its happening infinite times and place. No ends and no beginnings.
For some reason our brains can not handle this. Yet there is no other answer.
John1956PA
(4,905 posts)From "In the Year 2525" (1969) by Zager and Evans:
"Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday
In the year 2525 . . ."
LymphocyteLover
(9,666 posts)distorted grand piano with a weird rock going through it.
Wounded Bear
(64,076 posts)AZ8theist
(7,202 posts)
LymphocyteLover
(9,666 posts)patphil
(8,901 posts)We're essentially still children, making guesses at how things work at the Cosmic level. This "crisis" is just the next level of discovery. I expect it will happen even more frequently as we improve our technology, with no end in sight.
LuvLoogie
(8,707 posts)Does our sense of community outlast our violent greed?
Pluvious
(5,347 posts)"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity"
-Albert Einstein
LymphocyteLover
(9,666 posts)Ol Janx Spirit
(898 posts)...of the time since the Big Bang.
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-was-it-like-when-humans-first-arose-on-planet-earth-c8e2f108278d
If the entire history of the universe were compressed into a 24-hour day, human existence would occupy only the last few seconds before midnight.
Further, humans have only known about the Big Bang and Dark Matter for roughly 0.03% to 0.05% of our own existence.
The expectation that we would really come to terms with the actual universe through observations--keeping in mind that our observations comprise the same tiny sliver of the universe's existence as our own--and working out mathematical formulas is the real crisis.
It is the equivalent of a baby born one second ago thinking that it already knows where its mother came from.
Bo Zarts
(26,291 posts)"It is what it is,
and it ain't what it ain't."
Farmer-Rick
(12,572 posts)It's always correcting itself. Change and discovery are built into the model. Can't wait to see how these unexpected observations will change how we see the universe. I'm on the edge of my seat.
usonian
(24,414 posts)A civilization, and I use the term loosely, survives by growing wiser, not necessarily smarter.
We use scientific discoveries first to kill each other faster.
Get along or go away. Poof!
If you can stomach it, read how "genius" Edison proved the superiority of DC over AC. Make sure you're strapped into your chair first.
Until people adopt higher principles 🪷, kiss this planet good bye.
I am ready with my towel.

Pluvious
(5,347 posts)"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity"
-Albert Einstein
And that was his assessment MANY years ago !
Imagine what he would think today...
usonian
(24,414 posts)The dramatic account of the lethal harnessing of atomic power told in the 2023 blockbuster film Oppenheimer might have been nothing more than science fiction had a two-page letter, dated 2 August 1939, never been written.
"Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy," reads a typed letter to US President Franklin D Roosevelt signed by hand by the esteemed physicist Albert Einstein. (and Leo Szilard) This energy, he continues, could be used "for the construction of extremely powerful bombs".
And look who has become Shiva, destroyer of worlds, now.
Pluvious
(5,347 posts)Thank you for digging that up and sharing it
I had never seen that before before and did not know about it, I just knew he had something to do with the invention
I can see that this would likely have haunted him in his later years
usonian
(24,414 posts)Several lessons have stuck with me.
1. People always say "Well, if we don't do it, "They" will."
2. The beneficial uses of technology and the harmful ones are CHOICES.
3. People choose poorly.
4. Technology is mostly directed by sociopaths.
5. I always wanted to use tech to make life better, but
6. All the great ideas I had ended up trying to undo what those sociopaths (4) did to us with their greed and perversion.
7. There was discussion about using the bomb on military or empty targets. Civilian targets were chosen, though arguably incendiary bombs used on ticky-tacky Japanese homes killed more people.
I know a guy who was an infant at the Hiroshima bombing. He is still alive and a living Buddha among men.
8. Eleanor Roosevelt was opposed to the internment of Japanese-Americans. Hubby chose poorly.
I just heard a local radio show honoring veterans, in which a man interned as a child later fought for the U.S. Army and described the horrors of the war. (recorded earlier)
9. War is hell. It's not fun and games.
10. Shitler must go before he destroys everything.
NeoTrajan
(54 posts)'Science is in a panic!'
'Cosmology is in total collapse!'
'Astronomers are spiraling!!!'
For some reason, this reminds me of the new YouTube culture
And just one reason to dislike YouTube