The unimaginably large number 10^122, not the infamous 42 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, keeps popping up in descriptions of the Universe according to a new theory. The huge difference between Douglas Adams and the author of the new theory, however, is that Adams knew that what he was writing was fiction.
If there was a Numerical Regulation Association, their slogan would be "Numbers don't make nonsense, people make nonsense". And they'd campaign against things like Professor Funkhouser's cosmonumerology. The Military College of South Carolina professor claims that the number 10^122 has some kind of vast cosmic significance, and to say that the arguments have a few holes would be to say that the Titanic now has a couple of damp spots.
RuFor one thing, two of the five ratios he claims equal 10^122 are 2.5 x 10^122 and 6 x 10^121, which the higher-level MENSA geniuses out there may recognise as different numbers. Secondly, he states that it's amazing that this ratio pops out of existing physical constants, ignoring the fact that if you work hard enough you can get any number out of anything - and when you're at the point of using the holographic conjecture as applied to seven compact dimensions in a Friedmann universe, as he does in his papers, you're working very hard indeed.
He claims that the numbers are significant in some mysteriously undefined way. Observations of seemingly odd quantities can indeed lead to breakthroughs - recording the length of time oil drops float in a varying electric field might sound very abstract, but once yielded one of our most important fundamental constants - but there's no such justification here. The ratios are a pick-and-mix of whatever rammed-together figures worked, and the conclusions are undefined enough to make Nostradamus look like a precision-predicting machine.
While direct and vicious mockery of this numerological nonsense would be deserved, easy, and extremely enjoyable, it doesn't actually contribute much to scientific progress. Instead I'd like to list five fundamental scientific errors in the presentation of this preposterousness, in the hopes the reader can avoid future flim-flammery.
1. Assumption of helpful errors
In real science error is an undesired but understood annoyance that must be rigorously analysed and controlled. In fake science errors are magical gremlins that are just waiting to come out and make everything okay! Funkhouser answers the non-trivial point that many of his magic 10^122 ratios aren't actually 10^122 by saying they could be due to errors in our understanding of the numbers involved. Because as we all know, clearing up an error always leads to the desired result - there's no way that the vague resemblance between the values presented is due to the errors, or that the accurate numbers are actually (gasp!) further apart.
2. Claiming the alternatives are unlikely
Doubtless realising that he'll have to deal with the very valid "but this is just a load of ridiculous rubbish, isn't it?" question, Funkhouser attempts to head off the entire "Ridiculousness" argument by stating "For the same basic set of parameters to produce two large-number coincidence problems is essentially preposterous." Take that, naysayers! He's not stupid for stretching all bounds of reason and maths to tie together some nebulous numbers - you are!
While this certainly buys the cosmological coincidence some time, as the attacker splutters incoherently in the same kind of brainlock you'd get if a serial killer accused his victims of bleeding all over his nice knife, it's no argument. It's the academic equivalent of name-calling, insinuating that any other alternative is stupid without actually providing any evidence for the assertion. And while this might be the scientific Godwin, you know who else supports their theories by saying everything else is too unlikely? Intelligent Designers.
3. Invalid Approximations
Large approximations are part and parcel of cosmological research - when you're simulating mind-bendingly huge items halfway across the universe based on incomplete, noisy data then getting within a factor of a hundred is a genuine success. Astronomers have been celebrated for calculating values that were only out by a factor of ten. That's accepted. But when your ENTIRE HYPOTHESIS is "These numbers are amazingly the same!", you don't get to claim that being out by an order of magnitude is then negligible. In most numerical circles (apart from Enron accountancy) when two things differ by a double-digit factor, they're actually different numbers. And yes, I feel depressed by the fact I have to type that sentence out for a professor.
4. Flawed assumptions
One of his not-exactly-10^122 figures is the number of possible arrangements of all the particles we think are in the universe - but some of his other arguments are based on dark matter and energy, whose entire point is that we don't know about all the particles in the universe. People normally choose one opinion or the other, but Professor Funkhouser is unfettered by such limitations, combining both sides of the debate into a Mobius loop of self-falsifying conjecture to amaze and astound!
Oh, and he's previously published papers claiming 10^40 is a magic meganumber. And papers claiming 10^122 is still the magic number, but for different reasons. 42, or even 10^42, hasn't been selected as a candidate but it can only be a matter of time.
Funkhouser is no classic crackpot - he's a lecturing professor with a PhD in ion fusion, and doubtless does useful work, but it's long past time someone took him aside and said "Listen Scott, we know you enjoy this number game but it's time to hang it up". He uses heavy-duty physical formulae in his cosmonumerological papers, but using scalpels to cut up a newspaper for a ransom note doesn't make you a surgeon - it makes you a criminal misusing precision instruments for your own demented reasons. Reading these equations in the Royal Society papers he's submitted is like watching bears riding unicycles in the circus - proud, powerful things forced to prance embarrassingly for someone's idea of amusement.
It's important to have a hobby, but maybe he should try a different one. If my name was Professor Funkhouser I'd be a DJ.
Posted by Luke McKinney.
Related Galaxy posts:
"42": Hitchhiker's Guide Foreshadows Actual Weight of Universe!
Cosmic coincidence spotted http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080220/full/news.2008.610.html