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Comment by Tazerenix

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Comment by Tazerenix

The evidence for the big bang is generally not that if you look far enough back in a telescope, the universe looks younger, which is somewhat the layperson's confusion.

Evidence for the big bang is about measuring redshift of galaxies throughout universal history, homgeneity and thermal equilibrium of the universe and CMBR, which could only be explained by it all having been in a compressed location where it could reach thermal equilibrium at some point in the distant past.

None of that is challenged by the Webb observations about very young supermassive black holes.

In fact, the existence of supermassive black holes themselves has basically always been an unsolved problem even before Webb. The only known possible explanation (stellar collapse -> accretion -> supermassive black hole) could be ruled out even before Webb on theoretical and experimental grounds, we just have stronger evidence against it now. (To wit: if supermassive black holes form from stellar black holes by growing, you would expect to see lots of intermediate mass black holes. We see almost none. Furthermore, the process of accretion is extremely energetic, so IMBHs would be the most visible objects in the night sky. The fact we see none is doubly damning)

The mainstream position now will be big bang + some kind of primordial black hole formation during the very early stages of the universe. Work of Hawking/Penrose shows that black holes can form under generic conditions in solutions to the EFE equations. We have a general understanding of how they could come about from certain dense matter layouts in a standard GR cosmological model.

Replies Tazerenix · 2026-07-04
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