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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Cosmic Constant



Cosmic Coincidence Spotted: An Absurdly Large Number Could Hold The Key To Universal Mysteries .

If you like cosmology, this is a fascinating article.

Here's an excerpt:

"The existence of two large-number coincidences (10^40 and 10^122) now presents a puzzle in itself. It is remarkable enough that the parameters of nature should somehow produce one large-number coincidence,” says Scott Funkhouser, of the Citadel. “For the same basic set of parameters to produce two large-number coincidence problems is essentially preposterous — unless the two problems are related.”

But how?

Funkhouser notes that 10^122 is about equal to the cube of 10^40.

That's no coincidence.

8 comments:

  1. This is reminding me of the Fibonacci numbers.

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  2. Fascinating. I'd like to think that the mathematical-coincidence foundations of our universe are a bit tighter than "give or take a factor of ten," as the article says, but I'll buy it. It makes more sense than a white-bearded dude sitting on some floating throne in the clouds....

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  3. j.d.: This is along those lines. The patterns are visible because they work.

    d.a.: A factor of ten is meaningless when dealing with such large numbers. 10^122 is larger than the number of all particle in the universe!

    Um, do you mean Dumbldore ;-)

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  4. I knew u would post on the lunar eclipse! :)

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  5. angel: I was just outside watching it. Beautiful. I wish I could capture the sight, but I was unhappy with the photos I took & came back inside for a bit. It's not the camera, it's the photographer!

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  6. Huh. And here I thought the answer was 42 all this time.

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  7. I still think the answer is 47... that Hitchhiker stuff is OK, but it can't beat Trek.

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