X-Message-Number: 5942
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 22:19:21 -0800
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Tipler's Omega Point Theory

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I just finished reading Frank Tipler's book  "The Physics of
immortality" today. I had put off reading it for long time
because I didn't think it would be any good, I was wrong it's
quite good, but I wish he had spent less time trying to justify
existing religious beliefs. 

Tipler thinks that the universe will be able to perform an
infinite number of calculations between now and the final
singularity at the end of the Big Crunch. With this much
computer power it would be easy to emulate every human being who
ever lived and do it for an infinitely long subjective time. I
have never taken the idea of an infinite mind very seriously,
and I'm not  sure I do yet but one thing I am sure of is that 
Tipler's critics were  being unfair when they labeled it Pseudo Science. 
His ideas might be completely  wrong but the they are not silly 
because it's possible to prove it wrong. Tipler's Omega  Point Theory 
makes a bunch of predictions, practical predictions that should  
be able to be tested for in the next 4 or 5 years. Tipler himself states 
that  every one of these predictions must turn out to be correct 
or the entire  theory is dead in the water.

* Tipler predicts that the universe is closed: I think most
  would say   it's probably open, Tipler say's they're wrong. 

* Tipler wrote his book in early 1992 and predicted that the
  mass of the Top Quark would be 185 +- 20 GeV: At the time
  there was a report that it was at 135 GeV, Tipler said this
  must be in error and it turned out he was   right. In March 1995
  Fermi Lab found the Top Quark at 180 +- 13 GeV.

* Tipler predicts that the Higgs boson must be at 220 +- 20 GeV:
  If he's  correct then when the CERN Large Hadron Collider goes
  on line in 1999 it   will find it almost immediately.   * Tipler
  predicts that the temperature fluctuations of the cosmic
  background  black body  radiation must be less than 6 * 10^-5:
  This prediction looks  good, the observed value is around 5 * 10^-6.

* Tipler predicts that the Hubble constant must be less than or
  equal to 45:  30 years ago most thought it was about 200, a year
  ago most thought it was   85, today people are talking about 55.

* Tipler predicts that at maximum extent just before it starts
  to contract  the universe must be 70^3 times larger than it is
  now or larger: This depends on the density of the universe so
  we'll have to clear up all the   confusion over "Dark Matter"
  before we can tell how well he's doing on this   one.

Tipler makes some other predictions that  he doesn't know how to test for 

but there is no reason to think that it would be impossible for anyone to figure
out a way.

* Tipler predicts that the contraction of the universe will not be 
  symmetrical.

* Tipler predicts that the entire universe is a past light cone:
  This means  that if you send out a beam of light eventually it
  will circle the entire   universe and come back and hit you in
  the back of the head, the time it   takes to this  depends on
  the size of the universe. Tipler says light will   be able to
  make an infinite number of such trips before the universe  
  collapses into a singularity.

* Tipler predicts that both density and energy will diverge to
  infinity  during the big crunch but the density must not diverge
  faster than the  cube of the energy.

I was really surprised that this outrageous philosophical theory was a  
Scientific theory too and could have  so many testable consequences.


                                             John K Clark     

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