> I missed the SciAm article, but in looking at their preprint it is curious
> that they don't mention Frank Tipler. Much of their effort seems to
> be in contradicting Dyson's claim that life could expand forever in
> an expanding universe, but Tipler already did that in his Physics of
> Immortality. I can't really judge the merits of the two works, though,
> the physics is mostly over my head.
Here's a web address for another concept to mix in with, and compare with the SciAm article. Larry Krauss is an entertaining guy with a headfull of clever ideas and a terrific teacher. He does, however, fit the SciAM mould, with an eye to hide-bound conformity; something which Tipler or Julian Barbour (below) definitely do not!
I think to get new notions on the cosmos, you either have to make new discoveries with new instruments (upgraded); or to come up with new ideas in the theory department. For example, in 1997 SciAm ran a lengthy article; on how they were sure nanotechnology was a "cargo-cult science". To which I say Sig Transit Scientific American; Viva! New Scientist. Shit-disturbers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your old paradigms.
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991016/timeless.html>
From Julian Barbour courtesy New Scientist
>But I think that time is an illusion. Physicists struggling to unify quantum
>mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity have found hints that
the >Universe is timeless. I believe that this idea should be taken
seriously. >Paradoxically, we might be able to explain the mysterious "arrow
of time"--the >difference between past and future--by abandoning time. But to
understand how, we >need to change radically our ideas of how the Universe
works.