Images shown by the Webb Telescope – 08/30/2022 – Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Have you ever seen pictures produced by a telescope Infrared web. One astronomer eloquently said that Webb is “a telescope for everyone. We can see galaxies only 700 million years after the Big Bang. It shows what we can do when we unite.” Nice! American taxpayers unite for the good of “everyone”.

But the speaker wants to know, “What is the trick of persuasion?” For example, there is an unclear reason why NASA describes images as “photographs”. The Webb telescope captures infrared radiation that humans cannot see. In order to “see” galaxies, infrared rays must be translated into colours. The masked beauty is “photoshopped”.

The journalist asks: “What is the personal interest?” The eloquent astronomer who uses the web has a clear professional interest in US tax dollars.

The benefit is knowledge, obviously. I want more knowledge, yes. I think it’s great that Luis de Camويسes and Putinha have written poems in Portuguese and I agree to your purchase of their books with your own money. Voluntary spending is good.

But if the state is going to tax us to pay for the telescope, the economist wants to know the numbers. Involuntary spending might be fine, but we’ll see.

In terms of cost, knowledge about the Big Bang will be less expensive to acquire within a century or so of technological progress. Shall we wait?

In terms of utility, how much would you be willing to pay if you could decide? No free ride for US taxpayers. So do the math, add the imaginary payments that every person on the planet should make. This is the social benefit. Will it come close to covering the cost of Webb?

However, there are very high cost-benefit expectations for a telescope like Webb, assuming its current cost cannot be reallocated and assuming it was indeed optical. Missiles can prevent stray asteroids from colliding with Earth. watch the movie”do not searchBut of course we need to find out their orbits. Only from Earth, the Sun prevents us from seeing all half of it. It can be seen by a Web Optical Telescope, placed on one side.

But it works in infrared. In order to see in sunlight a cold rock coming towards Earth at high speed, we only need a cheap optical telescope at the same location.

So the Webb Telescope is a staggering misallocation of public resources. As governments seem to do.
_{Clara’s translation aline}

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