Number of oxymoronic “multiverses” calculated

PSI Blog 20170216 Number of oxymoronic “multiverses” calculated

Sorry that I totally missed this one for the 2010 PSI Award for Pseudoscience:

Without tongue in cheek or facepalm, MIT blessed a cosmogonical mess that is now over seven years old:

Physicists Calculate Number of Universes in the Multiverse

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/415747/physicists-calculate-number-of-universes-in-the-multiverse/

This actually was published in Physical Review:

Linde, Andrei, and Vanchurin, Vitaly, 2010, How many universes are in the multiverse?: Physical Review D, v. 81, no. 8, p. 083525 [http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.81.083525].

You can get a review copy from arXiv:

https://arxiv.org/abs/0910.1589

Here is the abstract (if you really care):

“We argue that the total number of distinguishable locally Friedmann “universes” generated by eternal inflation is proportional to the exponent of the entropy of inflationary perturbations and is limited by ee3N, where N is the number of e-folds of slow-roll posteternal inflation. For simplest models of chaotic inflation, N is approximately equal to de Sitter entropy at the end of eternal inflation; it can be exponentially large. However, not all of these universes can be observed by a local observer. In the presence of a cosmological constant Λ the number of distinguishable universes is bounded by e|Λ|−3/4. In the context of the string theory landscape, the overall number of different universes is expected to be exponentially greater than the total number of vacua in the landscape. We discuss the possibility that the strongest constraint on the number of distinguishable universes may be related not to the properties of the multiverse but to the properties of observers.”

Egads! Look what you can get published as long as you are a believer in the Big Bang Theory. 

Oh well, at least they are getting closer to accepting that the universe is infinite!

“Holographic Cosmology” wins PSI Award for Pseudoscience

PSI Blog 20170208 “Holographic Cosmology” wins PSI Award for Pseudoscience

Thanks to Rick for this heads-up on the latest outrage in cosmogony:

Even Doyle Rice, the reporter for USA Today, sounds incredulous:

Talk about a reality check: The entire universe could be a "vast and complex hologram," scientists reported Monday. Also, even more unsettling, what we think of as reality may be just an illusion.

Rice, Doyle, 2017, Mind blown: The entire universe could be a hologram: USA Today [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sciencefair/2017/01/30/universe-hologram-illusion/97249856/].

For the Oh So Serious article that got past the reviewers at Physical Review Letters, check this out:

Afshordi, Niayesh, Corianò, Claudio, Delle Rose, Luigi, Gould, Elizabeth, and Skenderis, Kostas, 2017, From Planck Data to Planck Era: Observational Tests of Holographic Cosmology: Physical Review Letters, v. 118, no. 4, p. 041301 [http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.041301].

This type of nonsense is typical of regressive physicists and cosmogonists who are especially fond of the indeterministic assumption of immaterialism. The solipsism is in tune with Deepak Chopra, who seems to think that the existence of the universe depends on his own consciousness. The universe is an illusion alright—until you bang into something hard that wakes you up and brings you to your senses.

I find it hard to get the motivation here. I suppose they believe they are advancing the BBT along the path to eternal righteousness. It all goes to show that the mathematization of garbage is still garbage. Let’s hope that “holographic cosmology” doesn’t get recycled. But don’t hold your breath.