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U.S. abandons hunt for signal of cosmic inflation
- ethagknight 1y agoDidn’t JWST recently present confounding evidence against one of of the core assumptions of big bang theory, thereby invalidating it? Something about the faint, far off “redshift” background radiation from the beginning of time was actually coming from a much closet newer source , not what the theories held? I’ll repost paper if I can find it.
- steveBK123 1y agoWe have enough inflation domestically thank you
- usui 1y agoHow much does searching for signals of cosmic inflation affect domestic inflation?
- bravetraveler 1y agoRoughly what Elon has [both possesses and performed]. I kid, sorry to see the science go
- jvanderbot 1y agoWe're well past quantifiable statements. The meme "Government spending causes inflation" is entrenched now in some segments and will be used to justify nearly any spending cut.
- bluGill 1y agoWe could probably measure it if you really want an accountant to do so. I don't think it is worthwhile getting a number. Lets go with very tiny effect. However anything that is significant is things nobody will talk about.
- bee_rider 1y agoThe problem is that cosmic inflation is applied after domestic inflation, as a multiplier. So, we can’t say it is inconsequential in comparison. Thankfully as soon as we stop measuring it, it will go away, because we as a society don’t have concepts like “object permanence” and “an objective underlying reality.”
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ixtli 1y agocant tell if you really believe funding science creates inflation lmao
- steveBK123 1y agoIt’s a play on the double meaning of the word thanks
- drweevil 1y agoLowering inflation by cutting scientific research is like trying to free up disk space by deleting the odd text file. (Some numbers, for context: 2024 National Science Foundation budget ~$10B, Musk annual compensation at Tesla, ~$45B, Defense spending 2024 ~$850B) Lowering inflation by cutting social services is like trying to free up disk space by deleting `/usr`. It will be devastating. Meanwhile the wealthy have sequestered so much wealth for themselves that it makes any talk of "reducing inflation" by taking it out on the general population as the anti-democratic sham it is. Our government is purportedly Of the people, For the people, and By the people. For this to happen the government must function as an agent for the people, not just for the tiny minority of them who own the wealth.
- echelon 1y agoWhile the US needs to get spending under control, the cuts to science sting. A $1B cut for ΛCDM seems pragmatic as long as we focus on the economy. The cosmic background will still be waiting for us in four to ten years. Unfortunately, it feels like the budget cuts being made are incredibly partisan and not actually helping pay down the debt spiral. Especially when the deficit is increasing. Everything needs to be cut back, not just things one party doesn't care for.
- doug_durham 1y agoOr we need to increase revenues. Irresponsible tax cuts over the last decades have fueled the spiral. You need both responsible spending, and thoughtful revenue collecting.
- sfpotter 1y agoOr we could just raise taxes.
- bluGill 1y agoProblem is most of the spending is on social services nobody is willing to touch. If you even think about touching Medicare/medicaid or SS: your own party will get rid of you. There are a lot of other things that are large budget items nobody can think touching.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago> Problem is social services aren't a problem (sorry to be pedantic but i think it's really important to recognize that these things are necessary, and we can afford them). > most of the spending is on social services nobody is willing to touch. If you even think about touching Medicare/medicaid or SS but the BBBA passed, with massive cuts to medicare/medicaid (which will have some insane downstream cost effects on the broader healthcare/insurance industry as a whole, which will be passed on to insured individuals). > your own party will get rid of you that doesn't really appear to have happened to a degree that matters yet, because these orders are coming from the top of the GOP, but i suppose we'll see when the shit really hits the fan in the next couple of years.
- KolenCh 1y agoIt really hurts to see this happening. CMB-S4, stands for stage 4, is a huge collaborative effort that units many CMB scientists and experiments, in a sense that stage 1 to 3 experiments are “converging” towards this. To put that in context, CMB-S4 being a DOE project has many side effects to other CMB experiments in a lot of ways. For example, a few years ago the LiteBIRD mission led by JAXA from Japan has been gaining momentum, and many international CMB scientists got involved. European scientists got funded by ESA, and US scientists were expecting NASA to fund them too. In the end they denied the proposal (despite generally positive impressions when discussing with various people there), partly because they think the satellite based CMB experiment LiteBIRD has significant overlap with the goals of the ground based CMB experiment CMB-S4, deeming it unnecessary to support LiteBIRD. And then CMB scientists used to get generous access to NERSC, a top 10 HPC system in the world. But as CMB-S4 becomes a DOE project, NERSC being DOE funded also, it becomes a bit of conflict there, in the sense that they feel they need to prioritize access for CMB-S4 to guarantee its success. There are many other factors in play but in the end it becomes much more difficult to even get access to the system, not to mention having any sizable allocation. All these might not be so bad as CMB-S4 is supposed to be our endgame. It would benefits the CMB community as a whole so much. But now? It’s game over. It also hurts particle physics progress as well. Long story short, the CMB B-mode holds a promising sensitivity to inflationary models, that its discovery may finally makes inflation falsifiable. At the very least, it involves an energy scale so high that no experiments on Earth can reach, and therefore is a good complement, to high energy physics experiments such as LHC. There is a reason it is deemed so important in both the decadal survey and the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel. Project like this has under heavy scrutiny from both the scientific community and the funding parties around feasibility, risks, costs, etc. It wasn’t a a light decision to have had happened in the beginning. Why would the end come so abruptly without explanation?
- aitacobell 1y agoThe added bummer is that space funding cuts aren't just hurting public projects, they're also killing private companies that rely on the government as a customer.
- sieabahlpark 1y ago[dead]
- draw_down 1y ago[dead]
- cultofmetatron 1y agoits fine, with all the new contracts to open private prisons to house "illegals" that we're going to rent out to corporations for pennies on the dollar and weapons contracts so that we can gift israel with bombs to murder Palestinian babies, it should all even out. /s
- CommenterPerson 1y agoHey another way to dumb down the country. Become second rate at particle physics (LHC), aerospace (Boeing), cut funding from universities, <TLDR list goes here>. But we're #1 on social media!
- smith7018 1y agoChina is actually #1 with social media at this point
- slowmovintarget 1y agoBoeing was self-inflicted with the takeover of management by the McDonnell-Douglas bozos. They destroyed Boeing's ability from within, all on their own.
- wpm 1y agoA case study of the symptoms of neoliberal "profit at all costs" MBA mindset. Enshittify the services. Enshittify the planes. Enshittify the cars. Enshittify the food. Turn everything to shit, so that the line can go up one more quarter.
- qoez 1y agoThis kinda sucks but on the other hand, it's not like we won't figure this out eventually in humanitys history. There's no rush
- dehrmann 1y agoThese sorts of comments always get downvoted to hell because HN are true believers in science, especially space and NASA. The arguments for funding extremely time-insensitive research are usually de minimis (we spend so much more on X) or to beat the Russians/Chinese. Mass transit proponents have a similar relationship with opportunity cost. Yes, we can build California High Speed Rail, but would there be more net benefit by using the money to improve Bay Area and LA transit? You have to value these things against where the money would otherwise go.
- ctoth 1y agoFrankly I don't care if we figure it out after I'm dead, and I'm not sure why you would either. I want to know now
- DaSHacka 1y agoThen feel free to donate to organizations to fund it now, and the rest of us that don't care just won't.
- toast0 1y agoI's certainly an interesting question; but what will we do differently if we find that the rate of cosmic inflation has been changing? There's typically a lot of hidden value in exploring these kinds of things, and I get that, but there's not usually any particular urgency on any of them either. Also, from the last paragraph of the article, it sounds like this was already on a path towards not getting funded; IMHO, it's not a major shift to get a final letter ending the project when construction was not approved a year ago.
- advisedwang 1y agoYou know, we don't actually ever need to find out. We can just rest easy knowing that it's possible to find out in the future. That's basically as good as knowing.
- AIorNot 1y agoWe keep winning don’t we? The winning doesn’t stop
- stronglikedan 1y ago[flagged]
- someothherguyy 1y agowhats the destination?
- mingus88 1y agoProject 2025 lays it all out.
- lanstin 1y agoWhere truth is treated with scorn, scientists and other geeky professions have to scurry into the shadowy corners; where the wealthy rule over the rest due to the confusion of wealth with virtue and truth; where the best instincts of humanity, for curiosity, exploration, compassion, and rationality are mocked and cruelty, disdain for intelligence, disdain really for anyone not like the cookie cutter mainstream really, are lifted up at the cost of all groups that can't or won't fit in.
- bananalychee 1y agoVery dramatic, but funding scientific studies is no antidote to groupthink, authoritarianism, and cruelty towards the non-conforming, in case you missed the last 5 years. There's a pretty clear causal chain between the abuse of public trust and social influence from educational and scientific institutions in the last decade or so and the anti-intellectualism we're witnessing today, abuse which was and is driven by the same hubris you demonstrate by conflating intellectualism with All That Is Good. And needless to say since I am posting on HN, but I say that as an intellectualist.
- tlogan 1y agoIf we do not detect after glow does this mean that cosmic inflation did not happen?
- sega_sai 1y agoWho needs science, when you can have tax cuts for the rich ?
- zzzeek 1y agomore than that, who needs science, when you can have a stressed, desperate and ignorant populace that's easily pliable ?
- Drunkfoowl 1y agoWho needs science when all your questions are answered by “gods will/gods plan”. It’s pathetic, and 100% why we see the ongoing attack on science and education.
- yndoendo 1y agoWho need science when you can sell and market pseudo science to the populous?
- rcshubhadeep 1y agoPapa did not like this. This toy doesn't make noise (or noise enough)!
- frogperson 1y ago[flagged]
- ixtli 1y agoamerican exceptionalism is a drug and the majority of people (certainly the majority of voters) are hopelessly addicted to it
- kelnos 1y agoBecause they unfortunately largely have the law on their side. Unless you're saying we should take extra-legal means to usurp the government. Then we'd be no better then the January 6 Capitol rioters. As long as the American electorate is largely uneducated or mis-eeucated about politics, and continues to gullibly believe the words of wannabe dictators, we'll continue to slide into fascism.
- ixtli 1y agobest country ever
- krunck 1y agoGotta save the money for the neo-con's coming war with China. False flag in three, two, one...
- ta8645 1y agoObviously this administration has no interest in the homeless, but I'm personally a little tired of all the ivory tower elites getting upset that their intellectual play toys are in jeopardy, when millions of people struggle for food and healthcare. And this isn't a matter of "you can do two things at once"; we should provide for our own people _before_ we worry about cosmic inflation.
- smith7018 1y agoThe Big Beautiful Bill will add $4.5 trillion to the deficit in the next decade. If we hadn't passed it, we could have continued learning about cosmic inflation _and_ helped millions of people regarding food and healthcare and still saved trillions in the process. Of course, America would never do that, but our current issue is no longer "we should be helping people instead of doing unnecessary spending." Now we're squarely in "let's starve everyone of resources and give it all to the 1%."
- whodidntante 1y agoThe BBB will add $4.5T (this is the largest estimate) in addition to the $15T-$20T that would have happened without the BBB The debt would have been about $52T+, now it will be $56T+, if projections are accurate. While I do not agree with the BBB for many reasons, and I do agree that it increases the debt, it is not the primary driver of the debt. The largest driver of our debt is our "health" system. We spend $5T a year on our "health" system, which is twice the amount per capita that western European nations spend, and we have outcomes that are, across the board, worse. We spend $2.5T more per year than we "should" be spending on "health", which is by far the largest waste of our resources. If we would "simply" find a way to spend as much as western Europe does (even keeping our poorer outcomes), we would save $25T over the next 10 years. Our entire national debt could be eliminated in 20 years by doing this, even with the BBB.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoi agree ideologically, but the cuts are all coming from one ideological group of people bent on omnicidal domination of the planet. to them, healthcare and food for poor people is literally as unimportant as space exploration (unless it benefits the revolving-door relationship). we who oppose this should not cede ground on anything because those who propose this will not, either.
- kmac_ 1y agoHistorically, the center of scientific innovation shifted from Europe to the United States approximately a century ago, and is currently showing signs of transitioning towards China.
- cedws 1y agoSeems like every time I see a paper more than half the names on it are Chinese.
- herbst 1y agoIs there any metric to quantify this as a fact or is it just one of these things US people keep telling themself? In my lifetime I never got the impression that any area was particularly the scientific leader.
- _w1tm 1y agoHow many technological innovations do you remember from the past 20 years and from which areas did they come from?
- herbst 1y agoSurely a few come to mind. Well distributed around the globe, kinda focused around my living area obviously as this is what I hear most. How do you see that? Do you see an obvious tech leader in all fields somehow?
- spookie 1y agoThere are a lot of inflationary ways China grows their numbers. From sketchy journals owned by the government to made up stuff.
- Yeul 1y agoSatellites and telescopes can be easily verified.
- 1y ago
- zozbot234 1y agoFolks, let me tell you: nobody thought it could be done, but your favorite President (that's me, by the way) took on cosmic inflation and won, big league. We passed the spectacular Inflation Reduction Act - everybody's talking about it - and guess what? It didn't just tame rising prices here on Earth. No, no, we went ALL THE WAY. We ended cosmic inflation EVERYWHERE too. Incredible, right? First of all, they said "not possible." Scientists, astrophysicists, even Big Foot was scratching his head! Nobody could figure out how to stop the universe from exponentially expanding faster than my rally crowds. But under my leadership, we negotiated the best cosmic deal. We deployed state-of-the-art interest-rate spinners on dark energy, put tariffs on runaway space-time, and - I'm not kidding - built the beautiful galactic wall to keep excess inflation out of the Milky Way! The results? Beautiful. The universe has stabilized. No more exponential bloat! Stars remain at just the right distance, galaxies keep their perfect shape, and astronomers can finally retire their "Big Bang gone wild" theories! Our beautiful Inflation Reduction Act also saved trillions of light-years' worth of energy - making it green, making it lean, and letting us focus on what really matters: making America go WOW again! Now the Fake News Media will try to discredit us: "Impossible!" they'll cry. But we know the truth. We have the best cosmic economists, the smartest black-hole negotiators, and let me tell you, they're all saying the same thing: "Sir, you've done what no one else could!" So join me in celebrating the greatest cosmic achievement in history. We've ELIMINATED inflation, not just here at home, but across the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. That's what winning looks like, folks!
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoThat was way too coherent to be the current president.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- antithesizer 1y agoA decade into his political career and we're still doing this.
- 1y ago
- khrbrt 1y agoMeanwhile China is building it's own giant telescopes: https://www.science.org/content/article/china-quietly-preparing-build-gigantic-telescope https://www.science.org/content/article/china-quietly-prepar... And will soon launch their own version of Hubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian Deeply embarrassing as a US citizen.
- 47282847 1y agoI wish we could operate on the principle of data sharing in science. What a waste of resources to needlessly replicate and compete. Also, great, somebody else is doing it so we don’t have to! Less work for us.
- mosesbp 1y agoThis is already how astronomy, and specifically cosmology, research works in the US (and most other places). Data is made public within a short period of obtaining it on a schedule (usually less than a couple years) that is set before data is taken. It is far from clear that the Chinese government supports this type of open data sharing.
- herbst 1y agoYou are embarrassed because other countries can do things too?
- autoexec 1y agoSeems like it's more because other counties can do things we no longer can or are willing to.
- whodidntante 1y agoThis, and many other things in the area of science, is an embarrassment. However, I feel that what is argued about, by all sides, misses the point. The US spends 2X what China does on civilian space programs, and 4X what Europe spends. We spend 2X as much on health care, 1.5X as much on education, and 2X as much on science research. Our systems are inefficient and corrupt, and that is what needs to be addressed. Arguing for or against how much money we need to spend or to cut is just the modern day circus that distracts everyone from the real problems and provides everyone on both sides with feel good excuses.
- kdavis 1y agoGuth may never get a Nobel.
- lupusreal 1y agoCan anybody steel man the practical value of this kind of research for me? It seems to me that almost all astronomy, particularly the sort studying very large scale phenomena like this, is essentially useless for humanity. The best it does is satisfy our curiosity about the nature of our reality, but when the subject of study is something so huge there's no chance of it ever having practical application to humanity (unlike quantum mechanics!) As for the argument that it "kills private companies" who are contracting for the government on projects like this, it seems very much like a broken windows fallacy. If the government went around breaking everybody's windows that would be great for the private companies that replace windows, but so what? The most useful kind of astronomy is searching our solar system for dangerous rocks so that we might avert disaster. Anything beyond our solar system is just useless stargazing, everything out there is too far away for us to do anything with or about. Theories about reality which can only be validated or ruled out by looking at things so far away cannot have local relevance to us, or else whatever local phenomenon they govern which might be useful to us could also be used to test that theory. (For the record, I think this administration are a bunch of morons.)
- zzzeek 1y agodo you ever use GPS? is it handy? Where's the society that has never done astronomy yet has GPS ?
- lupusreal 1y agoSorry, but that doesn't work. (Your argument, not GPS.) Relativity was discovered after discrepancies were noticed in observations of Mercury, right in our solar system. Not through observations of distant galaxies. And suppose Mercury was never studied, or in fact never existed; would that make GPS impossible for humanity? Of course not. Relativity is relevant to GPS because it has effects on the scale of GPS, and can therefore be discovered and studied by simply putting very accurate clocks into orbit. Had it not already been known of when GPS was created, it would have been discovered soon after. In fact, studying very large and very distant things, other galaxies namely, has revealed discrepancies that suggest general relativity might not be the whole story. But is that relevant to GPS? Not in the slightest.
- ted_dunning 1y agoThis is pretty bizarre to cut US support for a project and still claim that the project is US-led.
- iluvlawyering 1y ago[flagged]
- valvix 1y agoMilne's model was a dead end It doesn't match observed gravitational effects or the detailed anisotropies we've measured in the CMB Higher resolution isn't just 'zooming in on noise', it tests inflation, neutrino physics, and quantum gravity If you think it's vanity, read what the Planck mission accomplished You sound like you stopped keeping up at a pop-sci summary from 1935
- raincole 1y ago> Almost a trillion dollars to increase the resolution of white noise. Is this "a trillion dollars" in the room with us? The budget of the canceled project is not even 1B. You're off by not one order of magnitude, but by three.