The CMB has long been considered the Big Bang’s “smoking gun” evidence. But after what JWST saw, might it come from early galaxies instead?
Every once in a while, an idea comes along that turns our conventional understanding of the Universe on its head. We have our current understanding of the Universe: the laws that govern reality, the conditions and properties of the physical Universe, and the initial conditions that gave rise to the cosmos we observe today. But sometimes, surprises fall into our lap, and they cause us to re-evaluate everything we think we know. However, new information very, very rarely negates our former picture and conception of reality; it normally only refines and enriches it. For as much as we look forward to the possibility of major scientific revolutions, most improvements in our understanding are incremental, not an overthrow of everything we previously thought.
Still, there’s always something to watch out for: contrarians to the scientific mainstream, eager to undermine the currently robust scientific consensus, who prop up specious claims and build an easily-collapsible house of cards by making sensational allegations that are completely divorced from reality. Recently, a number of people…
