Yeah Bruce, Things could be much different then what Krauss conceives of today. Why not a closed timelike curve within an open universe, or an open universe within a CTC?? I always ask myself, how this can benefit our species? If its just a fact that is too big and indifferent to our existence, then I sort of back-burner the scientist and his paper to file 13. I mean, it can be profoundly true and deeply, useless. Being philosophical, as I kind of am, forces me to use Maslow's hierarchy of needs quite frequently, which is why I am no physicist. -----Original Message----- From: Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Oct 26, 2014 1:35 am Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
I am with you that generally Krauss does a good job of popularizations of cosmology and so on. He is generally quite careful and accurate in his book "A Universe from Nothing", except on page 166, where he says "There is one universe in which the total energy is definitely and precisely zero.... It is a closed universe..." This is just simply incorrect. The total mass energy of a closed universe is not definable because there is no reference point outside such a universe from which one can measure the total enclosed energy. Krauss's argument by analogy with the total charge in the universe fails because he appears to have overlooked the simple fact that in a closed universe, light cannot go right round and back to the starting point before the universe re-contracts to zero size. This is a simple GR calculation in the geometry of a closed universe. See the text by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler (MTW, the 'Bible' of general relativists!) Bruce spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: > > Sent from AOL Mobile Mail > > I like Larry Krauss despite his attacks on Frank Tipler, because Larry > Krauss also concedes the possibility of faster than light travel. No > which among us, are going to turn down Star Trek? > > From: meekerdb <[email protected]> > > Bruce is a very good physicist and he's right. John Baez has a good > discussion of the point on his blog. > > Brent > > On 10/25/2014 7:51 AM, Terren Suydam wrote: > > I find this quite surprising too and wonder if Brent could weigh in > as I'm out of my league on that stuff. > > Terren > > On Oct 25, 2014 12:23 AM, "Peter Sas" < [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Wow... That's quite shocking! I see I have to be much more > careful in taking over what the pop science writers say... > > Unfortunately, physics is a subject where the text books tend to > carry > > more weight than the popular presentations. The text books > show that the > claims about the zero net energy of the universe made by > people such as > Hawking and Krauss in popular presentations are wrong. The > interesting > question is why undoubtedly clever people such as Krauss and > Hawking > would make such fallacious claims. I suppose simplification can > sometimes be indistinguishable from over-simplification -- > or else > people become more susceptible to brain farts as they get > older..... > > Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
