I am equally impressed. It is amazing what dedicated humans can do as a team, when they want to.

Here is a mind bending theory: the universe is multidimensional, and our observable universe is the result of the collision of two parallel "membranes," which repeatedly smash into each other (big bang) every so often. This is different than parallel universes that science fiction loves to use.

It is bizzare to think about a point beyond which there is nothing, and what is nothing? This must have been how the early explorers felt about the edge of the earth. Except in this case, things are also getting further apart and we don't know why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekpyrotic_universe

I hope this is not behind the paywall …

Greg Robinson Fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, Reluctantly

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/scie ... -nasa.html

An alternative:

https://thegrio.com/2022/07/12/hbcu-gra ... telescope/

Seems like an awesome manager to me, Doug. Thanks for posting.

That was my job until very recently when lab politics became intolerable. But the hardware we developed is being installed at https://simonsobservatory.org/ in the Atacama now - will be the world's largest cosmic microwave background telescope when its finished.

It was an amazing group of people to work with, but SLAC politics went all to S** and almost everyone in the group quit to find other jobs. I started at Google a month ago, working on energy research. This is fun too, if not quite so hard-core, and they pay fantastically better than the national labs do.

The national labs still to fantastic work, and have amazing people, but their management is so bad - all in the name of efficiency. (which to the DOE means counting every penny spent, but not worrying about how its spent



Me too. That's amazing stuff Josef.
Dave

After reading this thread from the beginning…..my brain hurts.

The planetarium at the local Museum of Arts and Sciences had a presentation on the first images of the JWT.
Mind boggling. It is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend just how big space is.
It is also difficult to believe that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe.

Objection your honor, calls for facts not in evidence.

Calls to mind the post about why all telescopes looking for intelligent life in the universe are pointing away from earth...

Billions upon billions of galaxies, with billions and billions of stars in each. Even if planetary life was a one in a trillion event, the universe would have to be full of life. If life as complex as us is a one in a trillion on top of that, there is still a universe full of sentient life out there.

But unless interstellar travel is somehow possible exceeding the speed of light, it almost doesn't matter if there are other planets with life, as we will never meet them and vice versa. Perhaps the previously posted concept of parallel universe "membranes" will somehow allow rapid journeys between different elements, but my guess is that such technology and understanding is a distant dream.

statistically there could be little question of this.

I think the real issue is the timing. Meaning, the intelligent life on the other end of this universe looking back at us with their James Webb, would only see the earth as a volcanic, rocky mass; prior to cooling and the condensation of liquid water, oceans, and life (or maybe 13 billion year from now, when our star is extinct).

It's like trying to imagine if your wife was born 1,000 years earlier or later. You couldn't even conceive of what she would be like.

Billions upon billions of galaxies, with billions and billions of stars in each. Even if planetary life was a one in a trillion event, the universe would have to be full of life. If life as complex as us is a one in a trillion on top of that, there is still a universe full of sentient life out there.

Now that is a thought, our suns light hasn’t even reached very far (relatively speaking). It blows my mind that we are now seeing things that left billions of years ago.

Vastly extending human lifespans could do also make interstellar travel possible).

Its hard to imagine today, but people change. Try explaining this discussion group here to our paleolithic ancestors just 50,000 years ago. 99% of most people's time is spent doing things that they would have a very difficult time understanding.