Astronomers have used the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes to confirm one of the most troubling conundrums in all of physics — that the universe appears to be expanding at bafflingly different speeds depending on where we look.
This problem, known as the Hubble Tension, has the potential to alter or even upend cosmology altogether. In 2019, measurements by the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the puzzle was real; in 2023, even more precise measurements from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cemented the discrepancy.
Now, a triple-check by both telescopes working together appears to have put the possibility of any measurement error to bed for good. The study, published February 6 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests that there may be something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe.
- Sal ( @ososalsosal@aussie.zone ) English99•5 months ago
Yesssss I yearn for new physics
- gregorum ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) English35•5 months ago
The prospect of irregular and unpredictable physics gives me anxiety
- WarmSoda ( @WarmSoda@lemm.ee ) 17•5 months ago
With the universe is not being locally real, and now this… Oh man. Exciting times for sure.
- gregorum ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) English13•5 months ago
Yes, discovery is awesome, and this is some crazy shit— it’s just that I prefer that the the rules that govern time and space make sense, lol.
- Domiku ( @Domiku@beehaw.org ) English26•5 months ago
It makes sense — we just don’t understand it yet 😀
- gregorum ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) English6•5 months ago
Fine
- muse ( @muse@fedia.io ) 9•5 months ago
It’s turtles all the way down.
- Shdwdrgn ( @Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ) English7•5 months ago
I predict bubbles warping time but not space, thus distorting the apparent speeds of objects we see through them. Star Trek taught me that anything is possible. 😆
And just imagine the new fields of math such a discovery would create…
- Ragnarok314159 ( @Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz ) 8•5 months ago
“I’m just going to round it anyways” - Engineering
- Shdwdrgn ( @Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ) English3•5 months ago
The Intel floating-point math error strikes again.
- Gerudo ( @Gerudo@lemm.ee ) 2•5 months ago
If something warps time, doesn’t it inherently warp space, and vice versa?
- Shdwdrgn ( @Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ) English3•5 months ago
Normally yes, but if an exception was found then that too would fundamentally change what we think we know. I doubt it will come down to anything quite that simple, but on the other hand gravity is one of those forces that we still don’t completely understand and when dealing with things on a galactic scale perhaps this new observation will start to crack open that particular mystery. It’s easy to speculate at this point, but really my hope is that this will lead to a better understanding of something huge. I think the most boring outcome of this would be something like “oops we made a mistake in our math.”
- SorteKanin ( @SorteKanin@feddit.dk ) 6•5 months ago
With the universe is not being locally real
What do you mean by this?
- WarmSoda ( @WarmSoda@lemm.ee ) 2•5 months ago
This can explain it better than I’m able to:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/- SorteKanin ( @SorteKanin@feddit.dk ) 12•5 months ago
Sometimes popular science goes a bit too far. Entanglement of particles and the fact that hidden variables don’t exist does not mean that stuff is not “real”. At least I feel that is abusing the word “real”.
- WarmSoda ( @WarmSoda@lemm.ee ) 1•5 months ago
Not following you. That’s literally what they awarded the Nobel for.
- SorteKanin ( @SorteKanin@feddit.dk ) 15•5 months ago
Well the link you just posted says they got the prize “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. They didn’t get the prize for showing that “the universe is not locally real”. That’s just something the article makes up in the headline to draw readers in.
I mean I get it, it’s hard to make science exciting and you need a bit of flair but I feel sometimes it goes a bit too far and kinda gives people the wrong idea.
- umbrella ( @umbrella@lemmy.ml ) 4•5 months ago
eli5 this universe not real thing. i can never wrap my head around it.
- SorteKanin ( @SorteKanin@feddit.dk ) 9•5 months ago
It’s as real as anything gets. What constitutes as “real” is more of a philosophy questions than physics question. Make up your own answer.
- h6a ( @hernanca@beehaw.org ) 13•5 months ago
This article https://nautil.us/chaos-makes-the-multiverse-unnecessary-236664/ made me very uncomfortable back when it was published. It takes what you say to the philosophical limit.
- JackGreenEarth ( @JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee ) English5•5 months ago
Uh, I hate how that article says ‘she’ for a scientist (just as I would hate if it said ‘he’). Say ‘they’!
- gregorum ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) English3•5 months ago
Neat
- Rai ( @Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 7•5 months ago
As a science bitch I’ve never believed in the Big Bang… I think everything has always been and will always be and it goes on forever in every direction and when I think about that my feet feel weird
- KidnappedByKitties ( @KidnappedByKitties@lemm.ee ) 6•5 months ago
Do you have evidence to support your position? Or is this just wishful thinking?
- gentooer ( @gentooer@programming.dev ) 4•5 months ago
If I remember correctly, that’s basically the Einstein - de Sitter universe, one of the early cosmological models. Einstein also didn’t like the accelerated growth of the universe, he called the cosmological constant (what’s now known as dark energy) a big mistake.
- WldFyre ( @WldFyre@lemm.ee ) 3•5 months ago
So when you run that model backwards a few billion years in your head then what do you think that looked like? I don’t follow what you mean.
- some_guy ( @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ) 70•5 months ago
The best moments in science are when we say, “wait, this doesn’t work.”
- Malgas ( @Malgas@beehaw.org ) English48•5 months ago
The sound of scientific discovery is less often “Eureka!” than “Huh, that’s funny…”
- I_am_10_squirrels ( @I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org ) 9•5 months ago
And sometimes “boink”
- Tiltinyall ( @Tiltinyall@beehaw.org ) 3•5 months ago
Solid Calvin and Hobbes reference
- And009 ( @And009@lemmynsfw.com ) English2•5 months ago
My science is growing
- mindlight ( @mindlight@lemm.ee ) 35•5 months ago
That’s exactly the opposite of how religion works and the reason why I firmly believe that there should be a clear separation between state and church.
People can believe in whatever delusions they want as long as they don’t force them on me.
- Hanrahan ( @hanrahan@slrpnk.net ) English11•5 months ago
But they always do, always, everywhere.
Even France which prides itself on it’s secularism is getting pounded. The US is delusional, “In God We Trust” ? Really, fuck that guy…
If you have church, it’s always church and state.
- Master ( @Master@lemm.ee ) English7•5 months ago
Wouldn’t that just be forcing your view of separation of church and state on everyone else?
/s
- Ms. ArmoredThirteen ( @ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml ) 58•5 months ago
I just want our universe to be cyclic, heat death is depressing
- ObstreperousCanadian ( @ObstreperousCanadian@lemmy.ca ) English32•5 months ago
Even though I won’t be there for it, somehow heat death makes me very sad.
- blindsight ( @blindsight@beehaw.org ) 25•5 months ago
Related, The Last Question by Isaac Asimov is a fantastic, timeless science fiction short story.
- Pyr_Pressure ( @Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca ) 8•5 months ago
Big bang happened once, why not twice?
- SorteKanin ( @SorteKanin@feddit.dk ) 4•5 months ago
Well, you can’t unmix paint. Entropy unfortunately only goes in one direction.
- Tja ( @Tja@programming.dev ) 4•5 months ago
I feel the same. Even if myself, my kids, earth, even the human race as we know it won’t be there anymore, it’s kind of sad. Slow inevitable doom. Carpe diem I guess.
- mortemtyrannis ( @mortemtyrannis@lemmy.ml ) 3•5 months ago
Meh. Honestly I’m glad it will all end.
Everything is pointless and nothing matters. Eventually.
- Zink ( @Zink@programming.dev ) 3•5 months ago
Everything is temporary, and meaning and beauty are in the eyes of the beholder. Your life isn’t “supposed” to be anything, so enjoy your brief opportunity to experience this crazy world that popped into existence before we did. And help others do the same, if you can.
- FIash Mob #5678 ( @FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org ) 13•5 months ago
On a cosmic scale, I find it kind of comforting that everything is eventually going to be gone. It makes it more important to enjoy one’s time in the now.
- pressanykeynow ( @pressanykeynow@iusearchlinux.fyi ) 5•5 months ago
The problem with this idea is that everything was already gone before the universe started, and here we are.
- Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 3•5 months ago
It could still be “gone” in the sense that nothing of this universe exists in its present state. Maybe it will collapse in on itself and a new Big Stretch will occur, and a new universe with new physical laws and new matter/energy will begin.
Maybe that’s how it’s always been. But whether it is finite or infinite, cyclical or linear, we will most certainly end, and that’s a good enough reason to live in the moment.
- Gbagginsthe3rd ( @Gbagginsthe3rd@aussie.zone ) 4•5 months ago
Considering we don’t understand dark energy and dark matter. I hold hope that there are other possibilities.
However, all hail the god of entropy. The one thing that dictates and impacts every moment of our existence
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) 4•5 months ago
If it makes you feel better, if ideas about multiple universes end up being real, it’s possible a sufficiently advanced species might be able to “hop” universes and escape heat death that way
- krolden ( @krolden@lemmy.ml ) 1•5 months ago
Not if all the universes began at the same moment.
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) 1•5 months ago
Sure
- Hadriscus ( @Hadriscus@lemm.ee ) 1•5 months ago
Nice idea, did you borrow it from Liu Cixin ?
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) 2•5 months ago
I have no idea what that is but the concept of the multiverse and possibly traveling between universes is an extremely old idea. This is just modernizing it to include the heat death of the universe
- Hadriscus ( @Hadriscus@lemm.ee ) 2•5 months ago
Yes, I mean that specific twist ! It’s present in a series of books by chinese author Liu Cixin called “the three-body problem” (I won’t say at what point to avoid spoiling it for you in case you’re into scifi and are interested in reading it)
Pretty cool idea if you ask me
Hmmm after jostling my memory a bit, it’s not exactly that. But it’s close, essentially the same idea
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) 2•5 months ago
Ahhh my bad, googling him I don’t think I’ve heard of him or his works before (aside from announcements of three body problem getting a show), but it’s possible I picked up the idea through osmosis somewhere. Yea it’s so far off that it doesn’t really matter, but it definitely helps with that ultimate feeling of nihilism that thinking about the heat death can bring along.
- reminiscensdeus ( @reminiscensdeus@lemm.ee ) 1•5 months ago
This doesn’t help at all but last I checked heat death was out and big freeze is in (spreading out to such a level that subatomic particles pull apart into basically nothingness).
- Daxtron2 ( @Daxtron2@startrek.website ) 27•5 months ago
This was kind of the whole point of the JWST so it’s a good thing!
- FeelzGoodMan420 ( @FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ) English21•5 months ago
Damn, the beings running the ancestor sinulation must have downloaded a new patch.
- Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 3•5 months ago
Should have sent it to QA, instead of making the devs do their own.
- Gerudo ( @Gerudo@lemm.ee ) 13•5 months ago
I actually had no idea that an irregularly expanding universe was the conflicting theory.
From my armchair astrophysicist perspective, I just assumed it couldn’t be a perfect sphere due to the background radiation map.
Obviously scientific method and all, but this is super cool that for realisies it might change some minds.
- FiniteBanjo ( @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ) 1•5 months ago
Maybe we’ll someday discover something as wacky as a “Strong Universal Material Force” that counteracts high energy expansion the same way the Strong Force keeps atoms together.
- chalk46 ( @chalk46@kbin.social ) 6•5 months ago
I guess going by CMB radiation isn’t that reliable, since the speed of light is a constant, but we don’t know squat about dark energy
plus, something as big as the universe, gotta make allowances for the butterfly effect- And009 ( @And009@lemmynsfw.com ) English1•5 months ago
There’s a weird theory that says speed of light is not a constant. Older measurements have discrepancies.
- notfromhere ( @notfromhere@lemmy.ml ) 5•5 months ago
Is it because our universe is actually some type of organism and it has growth in different areas more than others?
- ryven ( @ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English31•5 months ago
The summary is misleading. We have two ways of calculating expansion that, according to our current understanding, should arrive at the same answer, but they’re off by about 10%. It’s more a question of how we look than where.
Edit: corrected “title” to “summary”
- Muscar ( @Muscar@discuss.online ) 1•5 months ago
🤦