[Another Successful Troll by Herc] (no longer mentions): Infinite number of people toss a coin infinite times

From: Kent Paul Dolan (xanthian_at_well.com)
Date: 11/28/04 

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:02:04 +0000 (UTC)

"Stephen Harris" <cyberguard1048-usenet@yahoo.com>
wrote and quoted:

|- This answers part of my question within the Big
|- Bang theory context. "Note that in the above
|- paragraphs I have been careful to use the term
|- "observable Universe" rather than Universe. The
|- Universe itself, or the maximum amount of space
|- that we will eventually be able to see given an
|- infinite amount of time, may well be infinite. In
|- quoting a size of the Universe we infer how far we
|- can see in one direction (15 billion light years),
|- and how far we can see in the other direction (15
|- billion light years) and add the two to get a size
|- (30 billion light years). An age of 15 billion
|- light years in each direction therefore leads us
|- to infer that we are at the centre of a sphere
|- with radius 15 billion light-years, and hence that
|- the Universe is 30 billion light-years "across".
|- The trick, however, is that because the Universe
|- is homogeneous and isotropic, every observer must
|- measure a size of the Universe that is 30 billion
|- light years... even ones that are at the "edge" of
|- our observable Universe! This means that either
|- the Universe is sufficiently curved that space
|- doubles back on itself (like on the surface of a
|- sphere), or that the actual Universe is much
|- larger than the observable one. We currently think
|- that the latter possibility is the case."

Um, no, not at all. Observers on the edge of _our_
observable universe are at, or very near, the epoch
of the big bang. _Their_ observable universe is
much, much smaller, and so stuff there is much
closer together. In the limit of our possible
observation, their universe collapses to something
the size of a subatomic particle diameter or less.

The universe may be "homogeneous and isotropic", but
that is merely a hypothesis, not a theory subject to
falsifiability, even _in_ theory, since we can't
_see_ *that* universe. The one _we_ see grows denser
and younger with distance. [It also isn't the least
bit "isotropic"; it has structure at every scale.]

xanthian.

It's always valuable to remember this recent
interchange before wasting a lot of Net bandwidth on
another of Herc's inane trolls:

     Its like talking to someone with amnesia,
            forget Kent he's a moron who
           takes antipsychotics all day.
             -- Herc (gotch@beauty.com)

  Well, I just did a bit of a search through some
  of your recentish posts (just a few months ago)
    in comp.theory. [...] Seems Kent Paul Dolan
   was right about you, and that it would just be
  a waste of time for me to continue 'discussing'
            your 'solution(s)' with you.
     -- Simon G Best (s.g.best@btopenworld.com) 

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