arXiv:1303.7476v1 [physics.pop-ph] 31 Mar 2013 95 ik ta. 95.I oku nte e eae to information decades few useful Wilson, another contains & us signal (Penzias took this signa- us It that around a 1965). learn al., still that et is Dicke insight creation 1965; engineers the this Started telephone of us of 1948). ture brought venture Gold, sci- astrophysicists joint & (Aristotle, a and of Bondi 1964, minds eternity 1948; in eventually Hoyle, the about (e.g., confused ideas X,129, entists has temporarily (Rigveda funny 350BC) creation cosmology Lemaˆıtre,approx. 1931), BC; in some all 950-400 believe 1:1, although of Genesis the BC; 1000 foundation culture, before the of dawn been the Since Introduction 1. niekoldeaotteUies scs noastof set a into cast is the called the the cosmology, numbers modern about In knowledge numbers. to entire affection their is ap- ory whole. be a can as logic Universe similar the a work). to whether other plied question countless mysterious the and raises as 1975, to This Shea, themselves obscure & manifest generally (Wilson inter- are “forces” and an actions creatures by whose controlled normal lodge, assumption or is the ques- group happens i.e., of est theory, which kind everything such by that to given answers are preliminary tions life, of aspects created. r omlg o yisacsos is ancestors, its by nor cosmology ern 2010; answers its al., these released et (Tauber recently find Mission which results. to 2013a), Planck quest Collaboration, the Planck The in 2012). culminated al., et Bennett and actly cinatos ohas n te initiates. other science and lunatics, potheads, mathematicians, for authors, favour shamans, them fiction a communicate through have to us continuing lodge in to the ex- fun of have of members and numbers, some force least assumes driving at turn, main that in theory, the Conspiracy cosmology. become perimental has numbers these ⋆ pi ,2013 1, April ora fCmaaieIrlvne(Letters) Irrelevance Comparative of Journal omneeeto omlg n osiaythe- conspiracy and cosmology of element common A usinnvrakdi hscnet ete ymod- by neither context, this in asked never question A mi:[email protected] Email: 2 xsec forUies sa luin speiul assu previously words. as Key illusion, makers. an film contemporary is scenar clear and Universe possible authors This our analyse physics. 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c AA2013 DADA π e and C not e con- be- e π J¨org P. Rachen and Ute G. Gahlings: Conspiratorial cosmology—the case against the Universe ∼ base parameter = σ/Π Nc 2 −3 Physical baryon density ...... ωb ≡ Ωbh ...... 23c 6.9 10 11 3 −4 Scaled physical matter density...... Ωmh ...... c 8.9 10 11 ′ −3 Redefined acoustic scale measure ...... θ∗ ...... 42 3.4 10 11 − Thomson scattering optical depth due to reionization ...... τ ...... c 4.8 10 2 11 −2 Scalar spectrum power law index ...... ns ...... c 4.7 10 1 10 −2 Log power of the primordial curvature perturbations ...... ln(10 As)...... π 5.5 10 2 Table 1. Conspiratorial correspondence of modified Planck base parameters (see text). The parameters σ/Π and Nc are needed to determine the statistical significance of this finding (see Eq. 1).

2.2. 42 that the primordial spectral index ns =∼ c (Hinshaw et al., 2012). Ever since its proposal as “The Answer” by Adams Following the principle of complexification described by (1979–1995), this number has entered a fixed place in the Adams (1979–1995, Vol 2, Intro), we have to expect that thinking of a whole generation of scientists. It connects sci- this cannot hold for measurements at higher precision, and entific methodology, i.e., analysing numerical results with- the Planck results will require refinements in order to reveal out knowing which question has been asked; creation, as their conspiratorial nature. Here we note that the natural it turns out that our world was built to find that ques- conspiratorial symmetry c =∼ 1 occurring for sufficiently tion; and conspiracy, as there was apparently some disagree- large errors may break by refined measurements, so we ex- ment whether the creation of the Universe was good move pect c to be the correction factor needed to bring these (Adams, 1979–1995, Vol 2, Chap 1). Moreover, as indepen- measurements in line. Thus we allow all conspiratorial val- dently noted by Knoche and Scott (both priv. comm.), 42 ues to be multiplied with c, except c itself as squared su- written to base 2 means 3 times on-off (i.e., 101010), which perconspiracy is imbecilely unstable (Rachen and Gahlings, reveals again 23. in preparation). This defines 11 conspiratorial values which we compare with the Planck results. 2.3. π Traditionally associated to circles (Archimedes, fl. 250BC), 3.2. Comparison with Planck results the conspiratorial nature of π becomes obvious only when Following Planck Collaboration (2013b) we distinguish be- we consider that its distinguished geometrical meaning tween base parameters directly determined from CMB occurs only in flat space (Euclid, fl. 300BC), which has maps, and derived parameters within the ΛCDM model. been turned out to be one gross misrepresentation: First Close inspection reveals, however, that some of the base pa- we had to learn that the surface of is not flat rameters have been badly chosen by Planck Collaboration (Eratosthenes, fl. 200BC), then that space itself is curved 2 (2013b), so we decide to replace ωc = Ωch by the much in almost every place of interest (Einstein, 1915). Only 3 better constrained parameter Ωmh , and redefine the acous- very recently, it turned out that the abstract concept of ′ tic scale as θ∗ ≡ 100θ∗ −1 (for those who find this definition empty space in our Universe is indeed Euclidian to high dubious we recall that They are malicious). precision (Planck Collaboration, 2013a), which lets us con- The result is shown in Table 1. We see that all base clude that some obviously inaugurated ancient Greeks knew parameters chosen this way show conspiratorial correspon- something which the rest of us needed at least 23 centuries dence in the narrow sense. To asses the statistical signif- to figure out. icance of this finding, we define for each parameter the quantity σ/Π, i.e., the ratio of the determined 1-σ error to its prior range given in Planck Collaboration (2013b), and 3. Conspiratorial cosmology note that the chance probability of a conspiratorial corre- 3.1. Conspiratorial values for physical parameters spondence in the narrow sense is given for each parameter i by Conspirators are malicious, but They are not subtle. We can therefore assume that the construction of the cosmo- σi pi < 4Nc (1) logical parameters out of the conspiratorial numbers has Πi to follow simple mathematical operations, such as multi- plying them with each other. Following this principle, we where Nc is the number of conspiratorial values in the prior construct the conspiratorial values 23π,42π besides the fun- range, and the inequality expresses that pi may be overes- damental conspiratorial numbers 23, 42 and π, and intro- timated due to non-considered overlaps of the error ranges duce the superconspiratorial constant c = 23 × 42 = 966.2 around the conspiratorial values. For the total chance prob- ability that the match shown in Table 1 is purely coinciden- Without considering high precision CMB data, these pa- −4 rameters seemed to suffice to represent the most funda- tal (i.e., non-conspiratorial) is then p = pi < 1.510 , mental parameters of the ΛCDM cosmology, as the dark which clearly exceeds the conspiratorial confidence thresh- energy density ΩΛ =∼ 23π, baryon density Ωb =∼ 42, dark old of 23 decisigma. matter density Ωc =∼ 23, and Hubble constant H0 =∼ We note that not all parameters contribute to this sig- 23π [km/s/Mpc] ( Cosmology Project, 2008). nificance. For the optical depth τ the error bars are so Moreover, CMB data obtained by WMAP already showed large that essentially any possible value could have been interpreted as a conspiratorial match. For the more tightly 2 To avoid confusion, we note that in the physics literature c constrained combination with the matter density pertur- −τ is occasionally used to denote the velocity of light. bation power, however, we find σ8 e ≅ 23π. Efstathiou

967 J¨org P. Rachen and Ute G. Gahlings: Conspiratorial cosmology—the case against the Universe ∼ derived parameter = ≅ Dark energy density divided by critical density today ...... ΩΛ ...... 23πc 23π Matter density today decided by critical density ...... Ωm ...... π πc Current expansion rate in km/s/Mpc ...... H0 ...... 23πc 23π Redshift at which the Universe is half reionized ...... zre ...... — c,42πc BAO distance ratio at z = 0.57...... rdrag/DV (0.57) . . . . 23π 23πc Table 2. Conspiratorial correspondence of Planck derived parameters (see text). For each parameters, the best and second best match among the possible conspiratorial values is shown. For zre there is no correspondence in the narrow sense, but two in the wider sense.

2 (priv. comm.) pointed out that also σ8 =∼ π/42, but the sig- 4.3. Plot scenarios nificance of such more subtle correspondence needs further investigation. Eventually, Table 2 shows that a significant There are two main scenarios for a conspiratorial creation fraction of the derived ΛCDM parameters show conspirato- of our Universe. rial correspondence, among them those which capture the The first scenario is that our universe was physically highest public interest, like ΩΛ and H0. It should be obvious created by Them, potentially in a collider experiment. As that this is not above board. the time scales involved are quite large, it would be ques- tionable whether They still follow the progress of Their experiment. It is conceivable, however, that their life time scales are significantly different from ours, and such terrible 4. Discussion miscalculation of scale has readily been reported (Adams, 1979–1995, Vol 1, Chap 31). In this case, they may indeed 4.1. Other fundamental parameters still be there and potentially establish contact with us. The science fiction literature has conceived several ways to do Besides CMB physics, also high energy particle physics ex- this, e.g., by sending construction plans for transport ma- hibits fundamental aspects of the Universe. Of course, we chines on the frequency HI × π to the VLA (Sagan, 1985), cannot expect that the myriads of particle masses or quan- or by hiding black slabs on the moon, which of course must tum numbers are represented by conspiratorial numbers— have the dimensions π:23:42 (and not 1:4:9 as wrongly pre- for sure They are not na¨ıve. Rather, it seems that They 4 dicted by Clarke 1968). hide their message only in the most fundamental princi- ples, such as spontaneous symmetry breaking. Indeed, the A second, in our view more likely scenario is that there is no “Universe” in the regular sense, which we could observe. Cabibbo parameter λ = sin θc =∼ 23c to high precision (Particle Data Group, 2012). The clearest hint of conspir- The general idea that reality might be an illusion is not ex- acy in fundamental physics is given by the recent discov- actly new (e.g., Buddha, fl. 500BC; Plato, approx. 370BC), but it took until 1964 that this was cast into a language ery of the Higgs particle at a mass mH ≅ 42πc [GeV] (CERN Press Release, 2012). Clearly, this aspect deserves understandable to the technical-scientific society through a deeper investigation with a watchful eye.3 novel in which the protagonist discovers that our world is just a computer simulation (Galouye, 1964). Probably this novel was an pre-release violating Their publication pol- 4.2. Previous work icy, as They managed to prevent a wide spread of the idea by keeping the novel and an early TV adaptation5 largely Pioneering work on conspiratorial cosmology has been done unsuccessful.6 An policy change, however, seemed to have by Scott & Frolop (2006), who noticed already that cosmo- the intent to prepare us for the discovery now made. First, logical parameters exhibit some numerical correspondences. a group of French philosophers (Derrida, 1967; Foucault, We confirm this finding by showing that conspiracy in cos- 1969; Lyotard, 1979; Baudrillard, 1981, et d’autres) made mological parameters delivered by Planck is not homoge- denial of reality the mainstream of intellectual thinking neous, but clusters around very few specific conspiratorial in vitually all areas (e.g, Butler, 1990, 1993; May, 1994). values (see Tables 1 and 2). Second, starting at end of the last millennium the US film The work of Scott & Frolop was preceded by a seminal industry hammered the idea into the minds of the gen- paper by Hsu & Zee (2006), who proposed that the CMB eral public by a series of action movies, the most famous would be the ideal medium for the Creator to communicate one recalling a well-known rectangular scheme of numbers. a message to the inhabitants of His creation. Scott & Zibin Eventually, the idea entered ostensibly non-fictional science (2005) showed that Her message would appear different to through a search for signatures of the lattice spacing used in different observers, anticipating advertising methods cur- the simulation of our Universe in the spectrum of ultra-high rently explored by an incredibly large (∼ 10100) energy cosmic rays (Beane et al., 2012). company. An appealing aspect of the latter scenario is that it is It is mandatory in this context to mention also the im- much easier, even likely that They keep permanent con- portant progress in modern creation theories (e.g., Johnson, 1990; Dembski, 1998, and their followers). Using a method- 4 We note that the idea to this famous science fiction story ology very similar to ours, they try to deliver evidence that was born at a meeting between Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick which took place on April 23, 1964 (Clarke, 1990). the Universe was made by “”. Our results 5 confirm the latter of these two assumptions. Welt am Draht, German TV screenplay directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973. 6 Moreover, both the author of the novel and the director of 3 We note in this context that the Higgs field was proposed in the TV screenplay were expelled from the simulation within a 1964 (Higgs, 1964a,b). dozen years after their respective pre-releases.

968 J¨org P. Rachen and Ute G. Gahlings: Conspiratorial cosmology—the case against the Universe tact to us, either through “Contact Units” or by direct Bondi, H. & Gold, T. 1948, The Steady-State Theory of the projection of themselves into our world (Galouye, 1964). Expanding Universe, Mon. Not. Royal Astron. Soc., 108, 252 This would explain why and how the conspiratorial num- Buddha, S. G. fl. 500BC Butler, J. 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of bers have been repeatedly brought to our attention, and we Identity (Routledge, New York) would expect that most of the people named in the refer- Butler, J. 1993, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ence list of this paper in fact belong to Them. “Sex” (Routledge, New York) CERN Press Release. 2012, CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson 4.4. The end of the World Clarke, A. C. 1968, 2001–A Space Odyssee (New American Library) Clarke, A. C. 1990, Back to 2001, in 2001–A Space Odyssee, Reprint If our Universe is an experiment, it is legitimate to ask when 1998–2008 (Orbit, London) it is expected to be finished, in particular in view to future Dembski, W. A. 1998, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge University Press) plans or wishes we might have (like “I always wanted to see Derrida, J. 1967, De la Grammatologie (Minuit, Paris) Norway”). In the first scenario, cosmological models seem Dicke, R. H., Peebles, P. J. E., Roll, P. G., & Wilkinson, D. T. 1965, to give us little constraints on this, although we cannot Cosmic Black-Body Radiation., Astrophysical Journal, 142, 414 exclude that They are able to change ad-hoc some of the Einstein, A. 1915, Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation, Sitzungsber. der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin physical parameters governing our Universe, which could Eratosthenes. fl. 200BC have dramatical consequences (Turner & Wilczek, 1982). Euclid. fl. 300BC In the second scenario, the situation is much more Foucault, M. 1969, L’Arch´eologie du savoir (Gallimard, Paris) worrying as terminating our “Universe” would not take Galouye, D. F. 1964, Simulacron 3 (Bantam Books, New York) Them more than pulling a plug. Apart from the fact that Genesis 1:1. 950-400 BC Higgs, P. W. 1964a, Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Doomsday may, in this case, be either totally unspectac- Bosons, Physical Review Letters, 13, 508 ular or completely weird, we may also consider the pos- Higgs, P. W. 1964b, Broken symmetries, massless particlees and sibility that the dates of this event are somehow encoded gauge fields, Physics Letters, 12, 132 in our consciousness. According to recent rumours we were Hinshaw, G., Larson, D., Komatsu, E., et al. 2012, Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: informed about that date by a calendar (Sitler, 2006) at- Cosmological Parameter Results, ArXiv e-prints tributed to a fictional culture They have implemented in 7 Hoyle, F. 1948, A New Model for the Expanding Universe, our collective memory under the name “Maya”. As the Mon. Not. Royal Astron. Soc., 108, 372 predicted date, December 21, 2012, has passed without no- Hsu, S. & Zee, A. 2006, Message in the Sky, ticed effects, and error is inconceivable, we have to conclude Modern Physics Letters A, 21, 1495 Johnson, P. E. 1990, as Dogma: The Establishment of that our Universe did end at this date, but meanwhile They Naturalism (Houghton Publishing, Boston) received a funding extension and the simulation is restarted Lemaˆıtre, G. 1931, The Beginning of the World from the Point of with all experiences about the temporary shut-off erased View of Quantum Theory., Nature, 127, 706 from our memory. This incontrovertible finding confirms us Lyotard, J.-F. 1979, La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (Minuit, Paris) in our belief that the second scenario is the right one, and May, T. 1994, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist therefore it seems to be in our interest to continue providing Anarchism (Pennsylvania State University Press) Them with useful results. Particle Data Group. 2012, Review of Particle Properties, Phys. Rev. D, 86, 010001 Penzias, A. A. & Wilson, R. W. 1965, A Measurement of Excess 5. Conclusions Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s, Astrophys. Journal, 142, 419 Planck Collaboration. 2013a, Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of Following the logic of , we provided com- products and scientific results, ArXiv e-prints pelling evidence that our Universe was created by con- Planck Collaboration. 2013b, Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters, ArXiv e-prints spiracy. The belief in its—thus our—existence is herewith Plato. approx. 370BC, Politeia VII, 3.31 proven to be an illusion. Some open questions remain, for Rigveda X,129. before 1000 BC, Song of Creation example, (a) why the distribution of applied conspiratorial Sagan, C. 1985, Contact (Simon & Schuster, New York) values is inhomogeneous, (b) whether and how our Universe Scott, D. & Frolop, A. 2006, Cosmic Conspiracies, ArXiv really Astrophysics e-prints will change after this discovery, and (c) what did hap- Scott, D. & Zibin, J. P. 2005, The Real Message in the Sky, ArXiv pen in the year 1964? More data and improved models are Physics e-prints expected to provide answers in about one year from now. Sitler, R. K. 2006, The 2012 Phenomenon: Appropriation of an Ancient Mayan Calendar, Novo Religio, 9, 24 Acknowledgements. We thank the Planck Collaboration for their Smoot, G. F., Bennett, C. L., Kogut, A., et al. 1992, Structure in sympathy. We acknowledge spiritual support by the omnipotent Dada the COBE differential microwave radiometer first-year maps, and by the Rautavistik movement (http://www.rautavistik.de/). Astrophysical Journal Letters, 396, L1 Supernova Cosmology Project. 2008, Improved Cosmological Constraints from New, Old, and Combined Supernova Data Sets, References Astrophysical Journal, 686, 749 Tauber, J. A., Mandolesi, N., Puget, J. L., et al. 2010, Planck Adams, D. 1979–1995, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pre-launch status: The Planck mission, Astron. Astrophys., 520, A1 (William Heinemann, London) Turner, M. S. & Wilczek, F. 1982, Is our vacuum metastable?, Archimedes. fl. 250BC Nature, 298, 633 Aristotle. approx. 350BC, Physica III, 4-8 Wilson, R. A. 1977a, Cosmic Trigger (New Falcon Publ., Las Vegas) Baudrillard, J. 1981, Simulacres et Simulation (Galil´ee, Paris) Wilson, R. A. 1977b, The 23 Phenomenon, , 23 Beane, S. R., Davoudi, Z., & Savage, M. J. 2012, Constraints on the Wilson, R. A. & Shea, R. 1975, Illuminatus! (Dell Publ., Now York) Universe as a Numerical Simulation, ArXiv e-prints Bennett, C. L., Larson, D., Weiland, J. L., et al. 2012, Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Final Maps and Results, ArXiv e-prints

7 A well chosen name, as the Sanskrit word m¯ay¯a means illu- sion and is used in this sense in the Buddhist literature.

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