JWST

[Tom King]

My best friend that developed the micro shutters says everything is working Perfectly.

I expect everyone has seen the first photograph by now.  He says that they got spectra from 40 galaxies simultaneously in that single photo.  One has a red shift of 8.5 which puts it Very early in the history of the Universe.

[Mark J]

Hard to imagine, but "baby pictures"!

I think this week's Nova show is about the James Webb.

[Coop]

I get the intrigue and the fact that we have the expertise to get to this point but Mother Earth and her inhabitants suffer from the expense that could have been allocated for better projects here on our planet.JMO 

[BonPacific]

On 7/13/2022 at 8:35 PM, Coop said:

I get the intrigue and the fact that we have the expertise to get to this point but Mother Earth and her inhabitants suffer from the expense that could have been allocated for better projects here on our planet.JMO 

At risk of getting political, there's a lot of places we spend way more money for a lot less collective benefit. I'd gladly trade the entire Zumwalt boondoggle for a couple James Webbs.

[Tom King]

We would likely not be communicating now if it had not been for the early space program.  We'd probably still be driving inefficient cars with point ignition.  They didn't know what benefits would end up from it then, and we don't know what discoveries will make differences for future people either.  We still know relatively little about the Universe.  Much more money is spent on less important things all the time, like killing people.  

We have to let the smart people run.  Too much of everything is harmed, including the most wasting of resources, by those of lower intelligence who chose to believe what they want to believe.

[JohnG]

I’ll agree that there are far more benefits to these big scientific projects than their specific dedicated purpose. 

The money involved is high, but Apple, Google, and Microsoft each hold enough cash on hand to build at least a dozen of the JWSTs each. There’s also one person that owns a $5B yacht. $10B for something that will provide many years worth of scientific research and inspiration is starting to sound like a bargain. 

[Immortan D]

Those galactic pictures are quite impressive. But I'd rather see actual pictures of exoplanets, closer to Earth.

[Chestnut]

11 hours ago, Coop said:

I get the intrigue and the fact that we have the expertise to get to this point but Mother Earth and her inhabitants suffer from the expense that could have been allocated for better projects here on our planet.JMO 

Maybe maybe not. Technology from these endeavors have a massive positive impact on things you wouldn't imagine. The sensors used on JWST as well as the mars rover have expanded testing abilities for crops. Rapid nutrient testing of foliage and soil has allowed farmers to target fertilizers real time in the field. They have sensors on the back of tractors while drilling seed that outlines areas with GPS so they can come back with sprayers after the fact. The sprayers adjust rates based off the sensor data to get the perfect blend for the plants. Infrared sensors are being used with drones to monitor crop health and allows farmers to use targeted pesticides. This allows for higher yields at lower costs so we can have more food available and keep costs down.

This is really important because at the current rate consumption is going to outstrip supply so if we don't increase yields food is going to get expensive and harder to come by.

I don't want to get political either but these funds are developing technology that I never knew was being developed. This is just one field I'm sure there are trickle down impacts in many many other sectors. This one I just know because my cousin works in crop sciences and was really excited about this. We chat about it a lot while hunting and target shooting.

[Chet]

Hey, and don't forget Tang. 

On another note closer to home here, there are a number sharpening stones of the shapton type that use technology in their manufacturing process that is connected to some of the failed designs of the heat shield tiles for the space shuttle program.  The first time I saw one was back in the early 80's, it was about 3/8 inch thick and 2 1/2" X 4".  They were somewhere around 10,000 - 12,000 grit equivalent.  The company that made them were coming around to the grocery chains, marketing them to the meat cutters.  The called them "The Moon Stone"  They didn't go over to well because they cost about a half a days wage at the time.

Sometimes something that fails in one field is a success in another.

[Valleyslim]

My opinion is probably not very popular but if I had to guess. We have technology that would propel us into the star trek age but its all suppressed for the elite of this world. Kind of like the movie elysium. I have read that we as a planet have had been traveling throughout space since the 30s. Way before Jpl which is now nasa. I mean nicoli tesla turned a model t into an electric car that could go 90 miles just by strapping the device to the engine. Yet electric cars are like what 10 years old? Also after jp morgan found out tesla was making free energy tech, he immediately strapped all funding and destroyed his tesla towers. So yeah the government has stuff that would blow our minds funded by us. Just my thoughts, no proof of any of this

[Tom King]

Valleyslim, It would be a good idea for you to read some history of Nikolai Tesla.  Real history, not by some social media spouter.  He was indeed robbed by both JP Morgan, and Thomas Edison.  He was a genius, but not infallible.  He made some real discoveries that benefit us today, and was robbed of any financial gain from it by people who put their own greed and ego above benefit to humanity.  Sounds too familiar today, too.  JP Morgan did get a lot of financial gain from Tesla's inventions.

He believed his power generator could provide free electricity to the whole world, but it just wouldn't work.  It was not powerful enough to go far, being slowed down by anything in it's path, like buildings, and certainly couldn't transfer through the Earth.  It also required a receiver.  The farther apart the two devices are, the larger they are required to be.  While it might work in a small, controlled test area, it just wasn't practical any real use.  The energy, even though he claimed it was free, required an energy source to run the generator-then steam.  Even steam back then didn't come free from many places.

His basic ideas on these "oscillations" traveling great distances was correct, but they require wires for great distances.  That's how he ended up inventing AC (alternating current) electricity that we all use every day.

 Some of his ideas were just dropped, and some blew up.

The rest of your "opinion" (belief maybe??) is just nonsense.  I don't care where it's written down.  Our world is full of disinformation these days.  

[Coop]

Wow! I can see that I am way out of my league and rescind my initial comment. 
I’m still wondering why when you disconnect a water hose from it’s source, there is still water in the hose and when you disconnect a natural gas line from the valve there is gas in it but when you unplug an extension cord …….? 

[wtnhighlander]

Coop, there are still electrons in the cord, but no pressure to push them out.

Tesla produced his 3 phase electric motor long before his famous wireless power transmission experiments. He was fascinated with the idea of sympathetic vibrations, both mechanical and electrical. He built a radio-controlled, electric drive toy boat, before Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated communication by radio wave. Tesla was eventually pronounced to be the 'inventor' of radio, but not until he and Marconi were both long dead. Many of the  'failed' experiments he tried were sound in theory, but beyond the material science of the day (or now, in some cases) to produce.

Much of the mystery and rumor about the crazier things he supposedly did were fueled by the fact that his personal 'library' of notes and documentation was 'confiscated' by the US government when he died. Oddly, the 'Department of Alien Property' took possession of those documents, some 80 trunks full, although Tesla had been a naturalized citizen if the USA for over 50 years. To top it off, the works were given to an engineer named John G. Trump to review. Yes, he was Donald J. Trump's uncle. So, conspiracies abound. Tesla's family fought in court for several years to have his property turned over to them, and when it was finally released, only 60 trunks were accounted for, so more conspiracies abound. Supposedly there were 250 of Tesla's papers declassified in 2016, but it is widely assumed many more are still held in secret by the US government.

No doubt, the man was a genius, far ahead of his time. I have studied his life extensively, and there is essentially zero evidence that he ever built a wireless electric car, or the infamous 'death ray' that has sparked the imagination of so many sci-fi writes since he announced his tbeory for it. I'm pretty certain his wireless energy transmitter in Colorado had nothing to do with the Tunguska event, either. 

There is plenty of evidence that his Colorado tower WAS able to succesfully transmit significant amounts of power wirelessly, but as Tom alluded, it was not 'free' energy by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the municipal generating fascility of the town he drew power from supposedly burned up during the event. The misconception many people have is that the energy traveled through the air. Tesla's theory was actually that high-energy, high-frequency oscillations from a radiating antenna attached to earth would cause the electrons INSIDE the earth to "slosh" back and forth, much like shaking a bottle causes the water inside to flow back and forth. By placing a reciever somewhere along the flow, he could supply power to a consuming device, just as a turbine inside the bottle could extract power from the water flowing inside. An amazing bit of genius, but the source energy required is so large as to be impractical (so far). It is true that the theories behind these 'crazy' inventions led to the development of things like microwaves, plasma generators, and particle accelerators, so maybe they weren't ALL so crazy.

Sorry for the long monolgue / history lesson. I've been rather fascinated by Mr. Tesla for many years.

[Tom King]

I think he was probably what we call an Idiot Savant today.  We've probably seen such people who music comes naturally to at a level way beyond almost anyone else.  There are such people in other areas too.  I believe one of Tesla's genius areas was math.

[Mark J]

Those galaxies the JWST is seeing aren't just 13 billion light years away, they are 13 billion Earth years ago!  So here's the question that's rattling around in my head, what's there now?  Are those galaxies even still there?  The universe is expanding so they will have at least moved.  Have they moved so far as to not be in that region of space any longer. Stars have a life expectancy, so are those galaxies still "shining" ?  What happens to galaxies after 13 billion years?   Have they collapsed into major league black holes?  Hopefully Tom knows some astrophysicist with free time.  But in the meantime I have a headache, and the only cure is sawdust.  Better go make some.  

[JohnG]

Check back in 13B years and find out!

[Tom King]

It was accelerating FAST when we last saw it, so would be pretty far gone by now.  There is a LOT to learn for everyone involved.  It's a good tool to figure out a lot of things.

My theory is that every galaxy has a black hole at the center, and matter is being converted back to energy in the process.  Mass (matter) attracts, and energy repels.  Maybe they're just different states of the same stuff, like liquid water and ice are.  My theory of why the Universe is expanding is the amount of energy is increasing as the amount of mass is decreasing. 

 It's just a theory though.  I  make no claim that it's true.   I'm not a Scientist, and wouldn't have any chance of getting any observing time with the JWST anyway.  Writing such a proposal is not on my to-do list, which is already too long doing ordinary stuff.