Ring of galaxies challenges thinking on cosmos
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
But even then, given a large universe, why would this be mathematically impossible? If galaxies formed evenly everywhere, couldn't this have happened by coincidence? Which theory is violated here?
Sorry my knowledge is a limited "The great courses Cosmology" course from 2009
A random array of points can form a grid, but if you see a grid somewhere the natural assumption is that it wasn't formed by a random process.
Personally I discount the likes of 111111 and 010101 because I know there are artificial processes which produce those sequences and so I discount them on that basis. Yet if you were training a machine to recognize "random" data you'd need to include one sample of each of the possible 2^6 sequences to train it on representative data.
There is another category of random / not random to be considered: self-similar data, where there is similar data in the same area or at different scales. Taken in total, all sequences in this "universe" may be nonetheless randomly distributed.
A taxonomy / review of sequences which we generate inordinately and what phenomena are affected is missing. Self-similar data always deserves a second look, although the cause can be a natural self-organizing principle (e.g. literal snowflakes).
If random processes can give birth to structure, then one can also argue that maybe this ring is a fluke.
Remember that randomness is not necessarily uniformity
One explanation is that it is not due to any new physics; it is just that randomness happened to produce that apparent structure.
So my point is, if we go looking for some new physical phenomena that could have produced the structure, then why the unwillingness to probe unknown forces that could have produced life?
Btw: the first self-replicating molecules wouldn't have been particularly complex. It may have been a half-broken piece of RNA, not from base atoms but from nucleic acids. And it only matters that it formed RNA (it does not matter what the code "in" the RNA was. It would be self-replicating no matter what that code was, so there were many valid possibilities). Also there's no need to get the "ladder" part of the molecule right. Yes it requires random chance, sure, but it may not be all that unlikely.
This is also not the only such structure found, some other examples are even larger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cosmic_structu...
Why is that important?
>In general when using an algorithmic approach to identify clusters of points in a distribution, one must employ some criterion in order to decide whether the results obtained correspond to ‘real’ structures in the Universe, or are merely artefacts of the algorithm. One possible criterion is theoretical: if there is a good reason to believe that the points in the cluster are in fact gravitationally bound, for instance, or if its properties match those of structures that are expected to exist in the real Universe, it may be regarded as real. Alternatively, to assess unusual clusters which do not conform to theoretical expectation, the relevant criterion is whether they are unlikely to have arisen purely from noise.
Since the linkage length used to identify the Huge-LQG is so large, there is no reason I know of to believe that it forms a gravitationally bound structure. Certainly no real structures of such size are expected in the standard cosmology. On the other hand, when using this linkage length the clustering algorithm often finds such extended structures even in pure Poisson noise. It therefore appears that the Huge-LQG fails to satisfy either criterion, and so its interpretation as a ‘structure’ is highly questionable. This conclusion is even more applicable to the other slightly smaller quasar groups whose existence has also been claimed.
This is seen as a ring, but likely a coil aligned with our viewpoint.
I don't know much about astronomy, but that fact changed how I played with the idea in my head.
To my mind, the coil structure is the bigger headline, a bit buried in the BBC article.
I’ll try to get and read the AAS paper at the weekend, perhaps that will help me.
Something that has both a linear and an angular momentum or spin while pushing things (galaxies in this case) away?
I’m not a physicist in any way, so I might use terms incorrectly, but I hope the point got across.
The higher level of organization of the universe forming some DNA?
This passage/article doesn't make intuitive sense to me here. What in this physical universe is smoothly spread? Only if you average or look at a massive aggregate level, sure. But at each "zoom level" there should be another non-smooth structure, while things at a smaller level smooth out.
It's more or less fractal all the way up and down.
I don't think this challenges our thinking on the cosmos?
That would still be a valuable find, though.
I wonder if there are other structures, but we can’t (easily?) tell because of how they are aligned with Earth.
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38963315
In this regard, I agree.
[0] Is it just my imagination (or perhaps someone trolling Wikipedia), or does Zoroastrian eschatology seem a bit suspiciously like the Book of Revelation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism#Eschatology:_Re...
2. Abrahamic religions are extremely influenced by Zoroastrianism. Christianity maybe the most influenced due to it competing with Persian monotheism for the dominant near east religion.
Likewise for religion, the Greek[0] myths about jealous and infidelious gods speak to mortals in the same situation, and gods playing games with mortals echos with politicians doing the same with their people (especially given the various times and places where leaders have been deified in their own lifetimes).
But there was no Helios driving a chariot across the sky, and Icarus never flew too close to the sun; Ilúvatar never turned the world into a sphere in order that mortal men could no longer sail The Straight Road to Aman; and not only is Noah's Ark nowhere near large enough if taken seriously[1], a majority of Herod biographers and "probably a majority of current biblical scholars" consider the story fabricated or unhistorical[2]. (Also neither of the two kings called Herod line up with the Christian calendar, but a few years here and there is only really a problem for fundamentalists, not normal believers).
[0] now I think about it, it's kinda weird that the Greek ones are more famous than the Roman ones… I suppose the Roman Empire turning Christian part way through has something to do with that?
[1] Depending on which value of cubit you use, about the size of Berlin Zoo's monkey house.
[2] page 171 https://books.google.de/books?id=mWnYvI5RdLMC&q=Herod+and+th...
The Simulation hypothesis is a rational extrapolation of possible things. Quite different than religion.
Some other similar ideas that come to mind are the multiverse quartz megaspheres in the second half of Diaspora and the message embedded in pi in Contact, the novel.
These are stories of course, but the cosmic microwave background radiation is a real life megastructure that encodes the remnants of the Big Bang and that is terrifyingly fascinating.
Another real world one is the giant foreboding galaxies in the background of the Angular Diameter Turnaround xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2622/
What other examples, fictional or real, are there of giant monumental pieces of information encoding?