this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Yesssss I yearn for new physics

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

The prospect of irregular and unpredictable physics gives me anxiety

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

With the universe is not being locally real, and now this... Oh man. Exciting times for sure.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It makes sense — we just don’t understand it yet 😀

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

“I’m just going to round it anyways” - Engineering

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

The Intel floating-point math error strikes again.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (11 children)

With the universe is not being locally real

What do you mean by this?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

eli5 this universe not real thing. i can never wrap my head around it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Uh, I hate how that article says 'she' for a scientist (just as I would hate if it said 'he'). Say 'they'!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Do you have evidence to support your position? Or is this just wishful thinking?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 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.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The best moments in science are when we say, “wait, this doesn’t work.”

[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The sound of scientific discovery is less often "Eureka!" than "Huh, that's funny..."

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Solid Calvin and Hobbes reference

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Wouldn't that just be forcing your view of separation of church and state on everyone else?

/s

[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I just want our universe to be cyclic, heat death is depressing

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Even though I won't be there for it, somehow heat death makes me very sad.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

Related, The Last Question by Isaac Asimov is a fantastic, timeless science fiction short story.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Big bang happened once, why not twice?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Well, you can't unmix paint. Entropy unfortunately only goes in one direction.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

The problem with this idea is that everything was already gone before the universe started, and here we are.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago

This was kind of the whole point of the JWST so it's a good thing!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Damn, the beings running the ancestor sinulation must have downloaded a new patch.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The summary is a lie. The crisis isn't over it expanding differently in different places. It's that two measurement methods give different results.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I think it's important to add that those two different methods are on vastly different length scales

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Is it because our universe is actually some type of organism and it has growth in different areas more than others?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 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"

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