
Apparent Evidence for Hawking Points in the CMB Sky - xparadigm
https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.01740
======
dagss
I would be very sceptical of data analysis papers with Penrose's name on them.

Penrose & Gurzadyan committed this travesty:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3706](https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3706)

...and the entire CMB analysis community quickly rushed to point out the
numerous basic errors done in the statistical analysis.

E.g.
[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/733/2/L2...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/733/2/L29/meta)

Gurzadyan & Penrose wrote the kind of paper that should never have passed
basic peer review. And even when "everyone" pointed out Gurzadyan does not
have a clue about data analysis they still stuck to it.

I have no idea about this paper and if Penrose has found a better data analyst
to collaborate with this time. Just be aware that while Penrose may be
brilliant about the things he knows something about, his name on a data
analysis paper is not any guarantee about the data analysis being sound.

Edit: Another less polite and clearer exposition of Gurzadyan's "methods"
[https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2012/02/aa17344-...](https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2012/02/aa17344-11/aa17344-11.html)

------
mikhailfranco
Never trust experimental evidence presented by the author of the theory that
it validates.

However, if subsequently verified by others - wow - instant Nobel Prize for
Sir Roger.

~~~
pishpash
Yeah they've found concentric circles in the CMB too that turned out to be not
statistically significant, but it's definitely a neat theory.

~~~
dagss
"Turned out to be not statistically significant" is a very polite way of
saying it... they initially said "up to 6 sigma significance", while it was
obvious to anyone in the field that the data analysis in the paper was
borderline crackpot.

Example of a Gurzadyan takedown. See my comment on OP for more links.

[https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2012/02/aa17344-...](https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2012/02/aa17344-11/aa17344-11.html)

~~~
garmaine
How would you recommend someone to get up to speed on data reduction to the
point where they would be able to recognize such errors and know how to tease
out a signal without making similar mistakes?

~~~
dagss
Well I did a PhD in CMB analysis so that is how I know. Not sure if such
things will ever be controllable by people who are not researchers in the
field (or at least doing similar kind of data analysis). It is a shame the
peer review system cannot be relied on more; I hope a revolution happens there
(on the line of "N accredited researchers trust/distrust this paper").

~~~
garmaine
What I’m getting at is: surely this is a transferable skill that is not
specific to the field in question?

------
fernly
Some background, including (and kudos to the eds) a paragraph on the above-
linked paper of 6 August:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology)

------
perl4ever
I'm completely uninformed on this, but I thought that in order to evaporate
completely, a black hole must first shrink until it is very small, at which
point the amount of energy released by its final disappearance would be rather
a small amount irrespective of the original size. Why would the original size
of it make any difference?

~~~
greglindahl
The fine abstract says:

> in CCC this radiation is enormously concentrated by the conformal
> compression of the entire future of the black hole

------
novalis78
I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation in
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycles_of_Time](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycles_of_Time)
\- This would indeed be a fantastic find

------
bfoks
A recent video (with original authors) on this topic [0].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVDJJVoTx7s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVDJJVoTx7s)

------
sabujp
tldr; similar to
[http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Question](http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Question)
?

------
ionwake
Could this be evidence of Information panspermia?

~~~
geuis
No. Entirely different area of science (biology vs cosmology) and nothing to
do with that.

~~~
jonathankoren
But that's the thing with information panspermia isn't? You beam genetic
information via quasars across universes, which then somehow magically turn
back into people.

It's indistinguishable from magic, only it's got some math trappings. I read
this, and it struck me as basically the 20th century equivalent of demonology
and angelology, which was basically just religion fanfic with some feudlistic
political science thrown on top. (If God is the king, who is the viscount?)

~~~
garmaine
Eh, it’s not totally crackpot. If you knew something about the physics and
initial conditions of the child universe you could “stir the pot” enough with
your signal (whatever mechanism it is) to trigger natural processes of
complexity formation which eventually leads to life (e.g. make sure galaxies
form fast enough in the early universe to create heavy metals before inflation
pulls everything apart), then project a compressed scan of your consciousness
as a signal on the background radiation. Eventually intelligent life will
form, find it, get curious about its structure, decipher it, and simulate it.

Makes good hard science fiction. Not something I’d give high priors for having
actually happened, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look.

~~~
jonathankoren
But information isn't physical. I download the human genome, I don't get a
clone of Craig Venter. I get some mosfets that were manufactured in a factory
set. There's no mechanism that even makes sense for any of this. It's
basically "But if I multiply time by -1..." There's no evidence for any of
this, and no plausible mechanism of these pre-initial conditions to come
about. It's just magic people from outside the universe.

That's the thing that makes it crackpot.

Sure Penrose did some good science before, but this isn't it. This is just
bullshit. It happens. Tesla made a lot of discoveries with alternating
current, and high voltage electricity, but then he died convinced he was
talking to a martian civilization, and was on the cusp inventing a death ray.
Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, but in they're later years
abandoned molecular biology and started to embrace various quackery that
tarnished their legacy.

~~~
garmaine
If you download a connectome scan of Craig Venter, you _do_ get Craig Venter.
You're reasoning from a bad analogy.

