Hawking's new paper

[bascule]

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060619/full/060619-6.html

 

I can't help but think that what's being described here:

 

Hawking, based at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleague Thomas Hertog of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, are about to publish a paper claiming that the Universe had no unique beginning1. Instead, they argue, it began in just about every way imaginable (and maybe some that aren't).

 

Out of this profusion of beginnings, the vast majority withered away without leaving any real imprint on the Universe we know today. Only a tiny fraction of them blended to make the current cosmos, Hawking and Hertog claim.

 

That, they insist, is the only possible conclusion if we are to take quantum physics seriously. "Quantum mechanics forbids a single history," says Hertog.

 

Sounds an awful lot like the "Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language" Christopher Langan describes in the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe

[ecoli]

sounds like a stretch to me, but I'd have to read the paper (assuming I could even understand the maths)

[Martin]

Bascule and Ecoli, just in case you want to compare the journalist's account with their actual paper it is here

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0602091

Populating the Landscape: A Top Down Approach

S.W. Hawking, Thomas Hertog

22 pages, 1 figure

 

"We put forward a framework for cosmology that combines the string landscape with no boundary initial conditions. In this framework, amplitudes for alternative histories for the universe are calculated with final boundary conditions only. This leads to a top down approach to cosmology, in which the histories of the universe depend on the precise question asked. We study the observational consequences of no boundary initial conditions on the landscape, and outline a scheme to test the theory. This is illustrated in a simple model landscape that admits several alternative inflationary histories for the universe. Only a few of the possible vacua in the landscape will be populated. We also discuss in what respect the top down approach differs from other approaches to cosmology in the string landscape, like eternal inflation."

 

the technical paper may well be incomprehensible by itself but looking at both the technical thing AND the version dished out to public is kind of stereoscopic---like looking at something from two angles. I have found it helps sometimes.

 

Not recommending the paper (Hawking is not a personal favorite of mine---more interested in a younger batch of QG researchers work) but conceivably could be interesting to you to have a look

[J.C.MacSwell]

Seems like confusion reigns in the biggest extrapolation imaginable. Not really surprising but kudos to anyone who can take a genuine semi scientific (it can never be tested directly) attempt at it. Agree with Ecoli on this one.

[deltanova]

New scientist Number 2548, 22 April 2006

 

A pretty good article i still have to read it a few more times over to get it properly. and i cant wait till i understand the maths, then ill b right into the paper. till then, i think its rather pointless, ill just have to wait till some popular science books come out on it