The Panic Paper (JWST) - Sixty Symbols

Mike Merrifield discusses a new paper about early data from the JWST - and why it is not cause for panic!
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This project features scientists from The University of Nottingham


Sixty Symbols videos by Brady Haran
Editing here by James Hennessy

[foobarbarbar]

So glad we still get those videos. A glimpse of calm in those trying times.

[flymypg]

It should have been: "Panic! At the disks, oh" Then everyone would have gotten the joke. Be sure to catch that in the edit.

[dylanwolf]

All the qualities we expect from the Bradyverse. Level-headed news from the world of astrophysics, maths, chemistry, technology and science in general, delivered in an informative, understandable, short and entertaining video. Thank you, Brady - keeping asking those questions that we would like to ask.

[Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you]

I understand Brady's comment about pre-print servers. But I personally think they serve the fundamental purpose of science which is free and open knowledge sharing. Journals tend to put huge paywalls around papers, charge fees to the scientists for the 'privilege' of publication (those same scientists still have to pay huge subscription fees to read it and others - usually Universities stump the costs so Journals gouge them for all their worth). And after all that.... theres still no guarantees on the quality of the papers as how Journals implement peer review is subject to their own choices.... and there are numerous examples of seriously bad science being legitimised because it was 'published'.

Pre-print runs the same quality risks as someone can upload rubbish, but equally, everyone, free of charge, globally, can read all uploaded papers and share knowledge rapidly... which is what science is about. Doing research, making observations about the universe and adding to the wealth of human knowledge purely for the sake of adding to human knowledge forever.

Journals exist in the world and thats not going to change vut them acting as gatekeepers to the knowledge and putting substantial limits to their access (via paywalls) helps no one but the owners/shareholders of the journals. They have a prestige, and that for good or bad wont go away, but I do think they are the bane of the scientific world.

[Altorin]

Oh man the explanation is really cool.

So Hubble is seeing redshifted Ultraviolet and JWST is picking up optical light which is redshifted into injared so you see the same galaxies more clearly with better resolution, seeing elements of the galaxies that hubble just couldn't see.... So we were effectively just seeing the star formation in the distant galaxies... and not seeing all of the stars that are born... so it looked chaotic.

wow that is really awesome. Please Post more Mike videos for JWST I could listen to him talk about it for hours

[Stewi]

"Degraded a little bit but still better than it was expected to be" That's what I like to hear! (not the degradation part, but the robust engineering part)

[nickcalmes]

Whew thank goodness the damage to JWST isn’t as serious as I thought may have occurred! Thank you for relieving my concerns there

[jamgall]

You could say that the JWST team had HIGH HOPES.

[DCrr]

To all those that have, and are, working on the JWST. THANK YOU.

[Djorgal]

"So, Professor, how panicked should we be?"
"Somewhere between not at all and entirely."
"I call entirely!!!!"

[shruggzdastr-facedclown]

So good to see Prof. Merrifield on Sixty Symbols again!

It'd been so long since last we saw him that I have to confess that I was about to panic, but this video came to the rescue in nick of time -- now I'm calm again!

[astroferreira]

I might change the title to Don't Panic! And Thanks for All the Disks! Thanks for the video on the paper ;)

[MrHeroicDemon]

Haha! Yesss, Destin from Smartereveryday's dad worked on JWST for measurements, super interesting and love the ending there.
Great work and thank you for the info! Love these channels since like 2011-2012 perodictablevideos was just the best for chemistry.

[katymaloney]

Just here to say the title of that paper is hilariously flawless. No notes. Perfection. 😂 Publish as is.

[tomschmidt]

I hate when the popular press states this of that new finding is a cause of panic or proves old knowledge is wrong. The entire reason to build JWST was to find out new stuff. That is exciting not a cause for panic. A better notion is that all theories are to some degree limited and new measurements expand the boundaries of our knowledge. Einstein did not prove Newton was wrong, he expanded our knowledge beyond what Newton did.

[AanotherAardvark]

A 'like' is not sufficient for this video. I had to comment too.
But I don't really have much to add.
Brady and Mike yet again give us a calm, insightful and understandable summary of topical science.
How does Brady with his journalist background do this??!?
How does Mike with... oh.

Go YT algorithm, go!

[letMeSayThatInIrish]

happy to hear that "even after the meteoroid impacts the quality of the telescope is higher than specifications at launch"

[sumerian_robot]

I follow this subject and him on Twitter and it's been a hell of a week!

[McLovinMods]

The Fidelity of those JWST photos just blows my mind.I sure hope to live long enough to see the stars with my own eyes.... if we don't do ourselves up first....

[ericl]

'A process of communication with the community.' - 2:06

One could also say 'peers'. 😃

Peer review isn't some small number of editors of some journal deciding with very limited time per paper submitted whether it should be seen.