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Intriguing speculative cosmology, to be taken cum grano salis for now...

Some recent articles by Alexander Vilenkin and various co-authors (#23 is written for philosophers of science rather than cosmologists):

The URL for this search is http://xxx.lanl.gov/find/grp_physics/1/au:+Vilenkin_Alexander/0/1/0/all/0/1

Showing results 1 through 25 (of 79 total) for au:vilenkin_alexander

1. astro-ph/0605465 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Reionization from cosmic string loops
Authors: Ken D. Olum, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 7 pp., RevTeX, no figures

2. astro-ph/0605242 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: The vacuum energy crisis
Authors: Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 4 pages, no figures; invited "perspective" article in "Science" (4 May 2006)
Journal-ref: Science 312 (2006) 1148-1149

3. hep-th/0605015 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Eternal observers and bubble abundances in the landscape
Authors: Vitaly Vanchurin, Alexander Vilenkin
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D74 (2006) 043520

4. hep-th/0602264 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Probabilities in the landscape
Authors: Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: Discussion in Sec. IV.A corrected and clarified

5. hep-th/0601162 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Probabilities in the Bousso-Polchinski multiverse
Authors: Delia Schwartz-Perlov, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 21 pages, 7 figures Minor changes made
Journal-ref: JCAP 0606 (2006) 010

6. gr-qc/0511159 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Scaling of cosmic string loops
Authors: Vitaly Vanchurin, Ken D. Olum, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: Added discussion of gravitational wave bounds; other minor changes

7. hep-th/0509184 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Probabilities in the inflationary multiverse
Authors: Jaume Garriga, Delia Schwartz-Perlov, Alexander Vilenkin, Sergei Winitzki
Comments: 18 pages, RevTeX 4, 2 figures. Discussion of the full probability in Sec.VI is sharpened; the conclusions are strengthened. Note added explaining the relation to recent work by Easther, Lim and Martin. Some references added
Journal-ref: JCAP 0601 (2006) 017

8. hep-th/0508135 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Cosmic strings: progress and problems
Authors: Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: minor changes; added references

9. hep-th/0508005 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Anthropic prediction for Lambda and the Q catastrophe
Authors: Jaume Garriga, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 20 pages, 1 figure

10. gr-qc/0501040 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Cosmic string scaling in flat space
Authors: Vitaly Vanchurin, Ken Olum, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 13 pages,7 figures
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D72 (2005) 063514

11. hep-th/0410222 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Gravitational radiation from cosmic (super)strings: bursts, stochastic background, and observational windows
Authors: Thibault Damour, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 16 pages, 6 figures
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D71 (2005) 063510

12. gr-qc/0409055 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Eternal inflation and chaotic terminology
Authors: Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 5 pages, no figures

13. astro-ph/0407586 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Anthropic predictions: the case of the cosmological constant
Authors: Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 14 pages, 1 fugure. Contribution to "Universe or Multiverse", ed. by B.J. Carr, to be published by Cambridge University Press

14. astro-ph/0405606 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Early reionization by cosmic strings revisited
Authors: Levon Pogosian, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 5 pages, a new paragraph added, matches the version accepted to PRD
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D70 (2004) 063523

15. astro-ph/0404497 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Anthropic predictions for vacuum energy and neutrino masses
Authors: Levon Pogosian, Alexander Vilenkin, Max Tegmark
Comments: 9 pages, 4 figures
Journal-ref: JCAP 0407 (2004) 005

16. hep-th/0312007 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Formation and evolution of cosmic D-strings
Authors: Gia Dvali, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: Added discussion and references
Journal-ref: JCAP 0403 (2004) 010

17. hep-th/0310034 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Dark energy equation of state and anthropic selection
Authors: Jaume Garriga, Andrei Linde, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 22 pages, 8 figs
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D69 (2004) 063521

18. hep-th/0309236 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Inflating magnetically charged braneworlds
Authors: Inyong Cho (LPT, Orsay), Alexander Vilenkin (Tufts University)
Comments: 35 pages, revtex, 18 eps figures
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D69 (2004) 045005

19. gr-qc/0305025 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Creation of massive particles in a tunneling universe
Authors: Jooyoo Hong, Alexander Vilenkin, Serge Winitzki
Comments: 32 pages, 1 figure
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D68 (2003) 023521

20. astro-ph/0304536 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Anthropic predictions for neutrino masses
Authors: Max Tegmark (MIT), Alexander Vilenkin (Tufts), Levon Pogosian (Tufts)
Comments: Revised to match accepted PRD version. Added references, discussion of very heavy neutrinos, analytic growth factor fit. 9 pages, 4 figs. Color figs and links at this http URL
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D71 (2005) 103523

21. hep-th/0304219 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Gravity of superheavy higher-dimensional global defects
Authors: Inyong Cho (LPT, Orsay), Alexander Vilenkin (Tufts University)
Comments: 19 pages, revtex, 6 eps figures
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D68 (2003) 025013

22. hep-th/0304043 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Cosmic Attractors and Gauge Hierarchy
Authors: Gia Dvali, Alexander Vilenkin
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D70 (2004) 063501

23. physics/0302071 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Philosophical Implications of Inflationary Cosmology
Authors: Joshua Knobe, Ken D. Olum, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: 25 pages; v2: revised version to appear in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Subj-class: Physics and Society; History of Physics

24. hep-th/0209217 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Solitonic D-branes and brane annihilation
Authors: Gia Dvali, Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: a typo corrected
Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D67 (2003) 046002

25. gr-qc/0204061 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: Quantum cosmology and eternal inflation
Author: Alexander Vilenkin
Comments: To appear in "The Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology", proceedings of the conference in honor of Stephen Hawking's 60'th birthday

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Plop plop fizz fizz...

A slight correction (to the original and to my post): the passage which reads

An estimate of the number of distinct histories that can unfold in an O-region between the big bang and the present gives 10 to the power 10150 . This number is fantastically huge, but the important point is that the number is finite.

should instead read

An estimate of the number of distinct histories that can unfold in an O-region between the big bang and the present gives 10 to the power 10¹⁵⁰. This number is fantastically huge, but the important point is that the number is finite.

That is, Vilenkin is speaking of the gargantuan number

10^10¹⁵⁰

Bumpity Bump

From your post,

"According to string theory, the quantities we call "constants of nature" — like Newton's gravitational constant or the electron mass — may in fact be variables that can take a wide spectrum of values. This has been discussed on Edge by Lenny Susskind. Despite some recent fire that string theory has attracted, it remains the best candidate we now have for the fundamental theory of nature."

The following is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

"Shortly before his death, (Richard) Feynman criticized string theory in an interview. These words have been much-quoted by opponents of the string-theoretic direction for particle physics ever since.

'I don't like that they're not calculating anything,' he said. "I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I don't like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation -- a fix-up to say, 'Well, it still might be true.'"

My personal favorite view of such a Mediocracy perspective is quantum mechanical. I really like the idea that all quantum outcomes occur, but we are perceiving the path of one particular series oif outcomes.

a planet similar to our Earth can suddenly collapse to form a black hole

All together now: Bush's Fault!

I've been knowin' about this since I saw Spock with a beard.

this topic is from thirteen months ago.

Nice links. Thanks.

God's pretty good at quantum cosmology too.