Ye Olde Universe
[image credit: Hubble / Wikipedia]
Or did it just confirm the unhappy status of the ‘dark energy’ seekers, long after Nobel prizes were handed out for its ‘discovery’? Quote: ‘despite much searching, astronomers have no clue what dark matter or dark energy are.’ A Nobel for having no clue – where’s the physics?
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For decades, measurements of the universe’s expansion have suggested a disparity known as the Hubble tension, which threatens to break cosmology as we know it. Can it be fixed? asks Live Science.
Now, on the eve of its second anniversary, a new finding by the James Webb Space Telescope has only entrenched the mystery.
Something is awry in our expanding cosmos.
Nearly a century ago, the astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the balloon-like inflation of the universe and the accelerating rush of all galaxies away from each other. Following that expansion backward in time led to our current best understanding of how everything began — the Big Bang.
But over the past decade, an alarming hole has been growing in this picture: Depending on where astronomers look, the rate of the universe’s expansion (a value called the Hubble constant) varies significantly.
Now, on the second anniversary of its launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has cemented the discrepancy with stunningly precise new observations that threaten to upend the standard model of cosmology.
The new physics needed to modify or even replace the 40-year-old theory is now a topic of fierce debate.
“It’s a disagreement that has to make us wonder if we really do understand the composition of the universe and the physics of the universe,” Adam Riess, a professor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University who led the team that made the new JWST measurements, told Live Science.
Reiss, Saul Perlmutter and Brian P. Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for their 1998 discovery of dark energy, the mysterious force behind the universe’s accelerating expansion.
. . .
[Later in the article…]
The simplest and most popular explanation for dark energy is that it is a cosmological constant — an inflationary energy that is the same everywhere and at every moment; woven into the stretching fabric of space-time. Einstein named it lambda in his theory of general relativity.
As our cosmos grew, its overall matter density dropped while the dark energy density remained the same, gradually making the latter the biggest contributor to its overall expansion.
Added together the energy densities of ordinary matter, dark matter, dark energy and energy from light set the upper speed limit of the universe’s expansion. They are also key ingredients in the Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda-CDM) model of cosmology, which maps the growth of the cosmos and predicts its end — with matter eventually spread so thin it experiences a heat death called the Big Freeze.
Many of the model’s predictions have been proven to be highly accurate, but here’s where the problems begin: despite much searching, astronomers have no clue what dark matter or dark energy are.
“Most people agree that the universe’s present composition is 5% ordinary, atomic matter; 25% cold, dark matter; and 70% dark energy,” Ofer Lahav, a professor of astronomy at University College London who is involved in galaxy surveys of dark energy, told Live Science. “The embarrassing fact is, we don’t understand the last two of them.”
But an even greater threat to Lambda-CDM has materialized: Depending on what method astrophysicists use, the universe appears to be growing at different rates — a disparity known as the Hubble tension. And methods that peer into the early universe show it expanding significantly faster than Lambda-CDM predicts. Those methods have been vetted and verified by countless observations.
“So the only reason that I can understand, at this point, for them to disagree is that the model that we have between them is perhaps missing something,” Riess said.
Full article here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Yet more “settled science”…
They never learn.
“the early universe’s crowded contents stretched space-time”
Balderdash. Neither Space (the absence of matter) nor Time (division into parts) can be stretched, warped, twisted, or other wise mangled since they are not physical things, but concepts of the Mind. It does appear possible for Minds to be mangled however. Just attend University. (“woven into the stretching fabric of space-time” indeed. PLEASE!)
“the astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the balloon-like inflation of the universe and the accelerating rush of all galaxies away from each other.” This simply not true. The reader should carefully review what Hubble wrote in 1937 about expansion of the Universe in his book, Observational Approach to Cosmology. In particular;
“When Slipher, in his great pioneering work, assembled the first considerable lists of red-shifts, the observations were necessarily restricted to the brighter, nearer nebulae. Consequently, the shifts were moderately small (less than 1 per cent.), and they were accepted without question as the familiar velocity-shifts. Attempts were immediately made to study the motions of the nebulae by the same methods used in the study of stellar motions. But later, after the ‘velocity-distance relation’ had been formulated, and Humason’s observations of faint nebulae began to accumulate, the earlier, complete certainty of the interpretation began to fade.
The disturbing features were the, facts that the ‘velocities’ reached enormous values and were precisely correlated with distance. Each million light-years of distance added a hundred miles per second to the `velocity’. As Humason swept farther and farther out into space he reported velocities’ of 5,000 miles per second, then 10,000 then 15,000. Finally, near the absolute limit of his spectrograph he recorded redshifts of 13 and 14 per cent., `velocities’ of about 25,000 miles per second – around the earth in a second, out to the moon in 10 seconds, out to the sun in just over an hour. Red-shifts continue to increase beyond the range of the spectrograph, and, for the faintest nebulae that can be photographed, they are presumably about double the largest recorded shifts – the `velocities’ are about 50,000 miles per second.
These quantities we are asked to accept as measuring a general recession of the nebulae, an expansion of the universe itself. The law of red-shifts then reads: the nebulae are receding from the earth, in all directions, with velocities that are proportional to their distances from the earth. The relation v / c = d L/L is a first approximation which serves well. enough for small shifts. The rigorous expression, derived from the theory of relativity, is complicated and departs more and more from the simple relation as the shifts increase. Back. Red-Shifts as Loss of Energy in Transit Well, perhaps the nebulae are all receding in this peculiar manner. But the notion is rather startling. The cautious observer naturally examines other possibilities before accepting the proposition even as a working hypothesis.”
Edwin accepted Relativity as a valid principle, although Tesla did not, and many have shown, including some astronomers of late, that it is an invalid principle. But those who must publish never pay attention to what has already been.
The only recession/expansion going on in the Universe is the perspicacity of posturing astronomers and physicists who have lost all connection with basic definitions. In the 2nd place, there is no radiation or dissemination of energy but what its origin is matter. Matter in a highly active state. “the universe’s present composition is 5% ordinary, atomic matter; 25% cold, dark matter; and 70% dark energy…we don’t understand the last two of them”
Understatement of the century. There is no understanding of artificial constructs to make poor physics understanding palatable.
“Those methods have been vetted and verified by countless observations.”
I beg to differ on that conclusion: re, they’re all chasing their tail. It should be baldly obvious to all that their “vetted” methodology being non-predictive is faulty and s/b tossed asunder.
The presumption with Cepheids is they’re consistent everywhere, uniformly constant regardless of observation point. Impossible to prove. Use of inductive reasoning only compounds the error. And oh, to date there has never been made a reliable measurement of the CMB. The last grand experiment was tainted with the microwave radiation of Earth’s atmospheric water vapor.
Edward H Dowdye showed as early as 2012 that light is NOT bent by gravity, and Arp showed a decade earlier that most observed redshifts have no relation to recession/expansion, being an intrinsic quality of matter in a plasma condition. And there is not as much agreement as supposed (what does consensus have to do with validity?) by cosmologist concerning the Universe popping into our LeMaitre existence.
There are fundamental discrepancies–and circular reasoning–associated with the CMB, Luminosity, Redshift, Gravity, and a lot of fanciful thinking involved with Relativity, Space, Time, and “undetectable” Matter and Energy.
“What I am experiencing and witnessing is an essential breakdown of science,” Kroupa said.
No, what everyone is witnessing is the breakdown of the curtain in front of the Man posturing that he actually understands the data.
What’s the rationale of proposing something, failing to find it, then claiming not to understand it?
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Andromeda and The Milky Way are predicted to collide eventually, instead of racing away from each other as is said to be the norm?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda–Milky_Way_collision
Article says: ‘Edwin Hubble discovered the balloon-like inflation of the universe and the accelerating rush of all galaxies away from each other.’
[…] Posted on January 2, 2024 by Rashid Faridi Claim: the James Webb telescope ‘threatens to break cosmology as we know it’ […]
““So the only reason that I can understand, at this point, for them to disagree is that the model that we have between them is perhaps missing something,” Riess said.”
Yes it is missing common sense, if the FACTS don’t fit the hypothesis then the hypothesis is wrong. No matter how much support it has.
Never liked dark matter/energy, still think quantum mechanics is misunderstanding what it is seeing and failing to base itself properly in maths. Physics has been wasting decades now by not properly challenging its paradigms.
The last 50 years has witnessed the atrophy of physics. Feynman must be spinning in his grave. I’ve always been astonished by the acceptance of a ludicrous theory like the big bang, all brought about by the assumption that a red shift results only from a doppler effect. I wonder how long it will take for particle physics to rationalise into something sensible instead of every problem being resolved by the invention of a new particle?
Filling blackboards with impenetrable equations has its limits.
FFS. This is seriously pointless science, of interest ONLY to those unconcerned by the real science lead problems in the countries where they live – or to the pointless people who make a living at taxpayers increased poverty studying places we can never go, and adding only wasted money to the lives of those forced to pay for it. Most of our problems are created by governments who don’t understand the most basic science we have spent the last 10,000 years understanding, anyone interested in real science should be somewhat more concerned about having any more developed future through real science at all. We already have too much dark, or very dim, matter in our own societies to get rid of.
Space stops at the Solar system for humans, and Hollywood can do the rest.
Most cannot and will not ever leave the Earth of which they are a very selectively evolved product of the Ice Age climate of only the last 2.5Million years. Get over it.
We should add astronomers and astrophysicisists to the passenger list of our own Golgafrinchan B Ark, with the other useless people.
The majority of investment and interest by brighter matter who can think a bit should self evidently be Earth study by satellites that benefit the humans forced to pay for it, also for a better grasp of the Sun’s variability in intensity of EMR and solar winds. Beyond that this star gazing, and making up bogus explanations for things we can’t change or use, should be funded by rich people with nothing better to do, with their money, not ours. As it was when good science was done, because its practitioners were not dependent on patrons and/or corrupt or stupid politicians for their funding – so could be independent.
There is no benefit for most people in the elite intellectual pseudo science of astrophysics. If it was ended as a taxpayer funded activity nobody would notice or suffer except academic parasites who return no actual value to society. Most people WOULD rejoice to get more money into Health, Education, defence, energy supply, etc. Humanity has bigger real problems for science to solve before staring at stars is an economic priority. Most people don’t understand the most basic science their lives depend upon, and make decisions about science in utter ignorance of what it says and how it works. This is becoming a huge problem for developed societies.
Carl Sagan explained it better. I endorse this message… Happy New Year…
I for one have always believed that the other dimensions are coupled to our universe. I have no idea HOW they are coupled, but if gravity or anti-gravity from some other dimension IS coupled to our universe it would explain a lot, considering other-dimension matter and energy do not have to be homogeneous, thus causing variations in our universe.
It’s a fun conjecture to play with.
Personally I like either 10 or 11 (total) dimensions because of the way they fold.
“Personally I like either 10 or 11 (total) dimensions because of the way they fold.”
It’s got to be an odd number because you can’t tie knots in continuums with even numbered of dimensions.
And I suspect there is not a finite number, anyway.
I think there is a simpler explanation. If light travels at around 186,000 mi/sec, and the universe is unlimited in every direction, i.e. 360 degrees, a sphere, then you only can see to the edge of the sphere’s horizon and not beyond. That horizon is defined by time. Different rates of travel of certain sections can be explained by currents of matter flowing along at different places and rates like ocean currents and eddies.
The big bang of necessity requires a central point where everything moves away from the locus. So where’s the big empty spot?
So where’s the big empty spot?
Wherever the telescope is, or so it seems 🤔
At last, ‘observations’ that disprove the ‘big bang to big freeze’ theory!
Dark energy??? Probably ‘leakage’ of energy to the ‘side of light propagation’ (our ‘observations’ are only composed of the light that we can ‘observe’ from our observation point).
‘Dark matter’ is just the ‘non-incandescent matter’ (such as ‘planets’, but is also included with the influence of the mass of ‘stars’ when taking into account ‘dark energy’ IMHO).
Take a look at ‘waves on water’ entering the entrance of a confined ‘harbor’. The ‘higher energy’ from a ‘wave on water’ ‘extends’ to the sides/ends of the ‘wave’ where ‘no wave exists’ altering the ‘wave front’ and ‘wave length’. Thus, where there is little ‘energy’ to the water surface a wave of ‘high energy’ falls into a ‘low energy’ region. ‘High energy’ always falls into ‘low energy’ in this instance and ‘light waves’ also follow this behavior. Thus ‘the doppler effect’ isn’t the ‘only’ way that a ‘propagated wave’ can be ‘re-directed’, or have its ‘wavelength’ altered.
We already understand that a ‘black hole’ has the ability to ‘redirect’ light propagation, but ‘dark matter’ in its proximity to an observation also has this property/potential.
Kind regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).
[…] Claim: the James Webb telescope ‘threatens to break cosmology as we know it’ […]