poly: accelerating universe and Leslie constraints

Some time ago we had a discussion on the Doomsday arguments advanced by
John Leslie and others. This spills over into anthropic cosmology, the
Great Filter, etc. The Guardian published an account recently of a paper
(posted on the Net) by Lawrence Krauss and Glenn Starkman, both of Case
Western Reserve U., that the newly discovered acceleration of the
observable universe implies a light-cone horizon that will isolate our
local cluster some 100 billion years from now. The farthest galaxies will
start to be carried away faster than light some 15 billion years hence.

I wonder what impact this has on the Leslie argument?

Indeed, I wonder if it has any salience to the traditional explanation for
Olber's paradox. Might the universe be eternal after all, except for
bubbles like our own that are observable only under (somewhat) anthropic
conditions?

Damien Broderick
Received on Thu Mar 25 19:42:12 1999