Comments on: Alex Vilenkin – Many Worlds in One

By: Coast to Coast | Cosmic Variance

Coast to Coast | Cosmic Variance — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 03:02:25 +0000

[...] Alex Vilenkin – Many Worlds in One [...]

By: simoshka

simoshka — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 21:13:53 +0000

Oops, the link didn’t work. Here it is again if anybody still cares:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/fourmilog/archives/2006-10/000767.html

By: simoshka

simoshka — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:51:48 +0000

There is a recent review of Vilenkin’s book written by the founder of Autodesk, Inc. John Walker and posted in Switzerland. I found this review EXTREMELY INTERESTING and informative. Here is the link:
Fourmilog: None Dare Call It Reason: Reading List: Many Worlds in One

By: The Trouble With Physics | Cosmic Variance

The Trouble With Physics | Cosmic Variance — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:12:18 +0000

[...] It is perhaps not surprising that there has been a backlash against string theory. Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics is a paradigmatic example, along with Peter Woit’s new book Not Even Wrong. Both books were foreshadowed by Roger Penrose’s massive work, The Road to Reality. But string theorists have not been silent; several years ago, Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe was a surprise bestseller, and more recently Leonard Susskind’s The Cosmic Landscape has focused on the opportunities presented by a theory with 10500 different phases. Alex Vilenkin’s Many Worlds in One also discusses the multiverse, and Lisa Randall’s Warped Passages enthuses over the possibility of extra dimensions of spacetime â€” while Lawrence Krauss’s Hiding in the Mirror strikes a skeptical note. Perhaps surprisingly, these books have not been published by vanity presses â€” there is apparently a huge market for popular discussions of the problems and prospects of string theory and related subjects. [...]

By: Plato

Plato — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:51:31 +0000

simoshka,

Yes I did indeed copy your link, to the book on “your reference” to Vilenken.

I just purchased Lee Smolins “What’s the troube with physics” so I am going through that slowly. I will definitiely have a look. Yours and others who gave good comments, are encouraging.

Thank you

By: simoshka

simoshka — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:22:48 +0000

Plato,
I did buy the book and almost finished it already. I would strongly recommend you to do the same. It’s a wonderful book, a delight to read, it is very different from all other pop-physics books I ever read. Vilenkin is a very good writer, he writes in a literary language which is normally reserved for fiction. He does not give you all the answers immediately, so you are interested in what is coming next. He is also witty and illustrates his text with great cartoons. His book presents the whole picture of the Universe, not just Anthropic arguments, and all pieces of the puzzle fit remarkably well. (If you are specifically interested in anthropic discussion, there is a great piece from the book on Edge.com, I put the link in my previous post).
For some unknown reason (to me!) the book didn’t attract a lot of attention; it doesn’t get exposure and publicity it deserves in my view, it has practically no reviews in the press. There are 8 reviews from readers on Amazon, all gave the book 5 stars, well justified. In short you will never regret spending 15 bucks for such a wonderful reading, it’s truly a BARGAIN!

By: Plato

Plato — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 15:13:19 +0000

By implcation, we can say a lot?

By: Plato

Plato — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 13:39:57 +0000

While I have not read the book either I am still “drawn to the debate” about what the “anthropic reasoning” is talking about at a fundamental level?

So as a layman I am curious too ,about views here and what the basis could lead too, in terms of what our universe had become?

If “carbon” wasn’t present at the beginning, then how would you explain “our universe?”

By: simoshka

simoshka — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 05:10:38 +0000

O-regions are NOT spatially infinite. It’s just a sphere with radius equal to the cosmic horizon. It’s finite by definition but each “island universe” contains an infinite number of them. I recently found a very clear explanation by Vilenkin himself on Edge.org. Here is the link:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/vilenkin06/vilenkin06_index.html. You might also find it helpful.

By: Don Severs

Don Severs — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:12:14 +0000

Can anyone elucidate this key point that Vilenkin doesn’t explain: Why are his O-regions spatially infinite? How can there be an infinite amount of matter in them? These traits are central to his claim that there are a finite number of histories, thus an infinite number of copies of those histories.