This reads like nonsense? It doesn’t help that every single positive comment seems to be by people nowhere near physics? And with the claims of being “extremely testable” there doesn’t seem to be any described…
The “JWST is smashing all existing theories” seems to be repeated a lot, is there anything at all behind that claim?
misja111•9mo ago
Well one of the comments is from Dr Wagner, a physicist.
> Dr Jenny Wagner, a German cosmologist, physicist and author based at the Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Helsinki, told The Irish Times Gough has developed “an interesting idea”.
It does read like science fiction, however, his theory did predict some of the recent JWST findings.
> The “JWST is smashing all existing theories” seems to be repeated a lot, is there anything at all behind that claim?
There definitely is. The early galaxies and super heavy black holes that JWST is discovering don't match the existing cosmological theories at all.
1. Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan. I think this is their staff page: https://www.tiara.sinica.edu.tw/people.php . It doesn't list her.
Arxiv.org has 35 papers from BASIC, and 6 of them have Wagner as an author.
This all suggests to me someone who is naturally aligned to heterodox theories.
Of which there are oodles in physics.
soco•9mo ago
The author is nowhere near physics just as well. And what we see here is little more than an idea, needing much more work until deserving to be called "theory".
Isamu•9mo ago
Right, these are ideas lacking precision. There’s the common usage of “theory” to mean any kind of notion, but in physics a theory is the really the math, it’s the main course not some side dish.
pavel_lishin•9mo ago
Yeah, and I absolutely don't understand the evolutionary link here - where does the pressure, or fitness selection, come from?
mano78•9mo ago
The first and the last two positive comments are from physicists…? And: if it explains something the other theory does not, maybe it’s worth considering, and applying the scientific method to. It may be bulls**, it may be that some pieces of it have merit, this is how science works. I think.
roenxi•9mo ago
Existence is absurd, there is a massive gaping hole at the root of it all where for some reason everything exists - raising obvious questions like huh? and what?. We can deduce that the macro picture is weird by virtue of it has to be something pretty out there to justify anything existing at all. For example, time existing was always hard to justify because then either everything started from nothing (bit of a stretch, what was there before?) or there was no start and the universe is eternal (which is almost harder to stomach; how could that possibly work). Much more likely that time is an illusion despite the superficial evidence to the contrary.
The idea that there is a macro evolutionary processes going on seems pretty tame by comparison even if it is heavily speculative. We're in a domain where we have no evidence to work with. We can see a bunch of stars. They're moving away from each other. It seems likely gravity is a major factor. We know evolutionary processes turn up at the drop of a hat.
mensetmanusman•9mo ago
“I’m the only guy who accurately predicted, at every stage, what it would see.”
Um, no. The James Webb observations extend far beyond what his theories attempt to explain. Why would he say that?
esafak•9mo ago
Shame on the journalist propagating this. There's not even an Arxiv preprint, which is a low bar any crank can clear.
He needs to read about dissipative structures, it seems less likely that universes reproduce and more likely that reproduction comes from the same dissipative patterns of energy that created the universe
misnome•9mo ago
The “JWST is smashing all existing theories” seems to be repeated a lot, is there anything at all behind that claim?
misja111•9mo ago
> Dr Jenny Wagner, a German cosmologist, physicist and author based at the Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Helsinki, told The Irish Times Gough has developed “an interesting idea”.
It does read like science fiction, however, his theory did predict some of the recent JWST findings.
> The “JWST is smashing all existing theories” seems to be repeated a lot, is there anything at all behind that claim?
There definitely is. The early galaxies and super heavy black holes that JWST is discovering don't match the existing cosmological theories at all.
eesmith•9mo ago
I'm a bit confused about her affiliations as that doesn't mention the Sinica Institute, but it could be out of date.
Her most recent preprint at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.04135 lists three:
1. Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan. I think this is their staff page: https://www.tiara.sinica.edu.tw/people.php . It doesn't list her.
2. Helsinki Institute of Physics. https://www.hip.fi/people/ says she's an Adj. Scientist
3. Bahamas Advanced Study Institute and Conferences, which I can find little about. (See https://en.everybodywiki.com/BASIC_(institute) , but the original Wikipedia article doesn't exist.) She's been affiliated with it for a couple of years. In 2023 https://phys.org/news/2023-10-theory-abell-hazy-askew-gravit... reports she co-authored a paper "proposing a new theory to explain the unique lensing seen with Abell 3827".
Arxiv.org has 35 papers from BASIC, and 6 of them have Wagner as an author.
This all suggests to me someone who is naturally aligned to heterodox theories.
Of which there are oodles in physics.
soco•9mo ago
Isamu•9mo ago
pavel_lishin•9mo ago
mano78•9mo ago
roenxi•9mo ago
The idea that there is a macro evolutionary processes going on seems pretty tame by comparison even if it is heavily speculative. We're in a domain where we have no evidence to work with. We can see a bunch of stars. They're moving away from each other. It seems likely gravity is a major factor. We know evolutionary processes turn up at the drop of a hat.