[RobRoy]

I have read two of Velikovsky's books - Worlds in Collision and Earth in Upheaval. Both riveting, for me at least. I find it amazing that he was considered absurd by the scientific community, while just a few decades later, the uniformitarians have all but died out, most of what he posited, from a catastrophists viewpoint has been supported by new discoveries in our solar system.

Only he and religious people used to be catastrophists. It seems everyone is now.

[medved]

You might want to have somebody at Borders or Barnes/Noble order you a copy of Charles Ginenthal's "Sagan and Velikovsky", New Falcon Press, and check out www.kronia.com and www.catastrophism.com

[RightWhale]

most of what he posited, from a catastrophists viewpoint has been supported by new discoveries in our solar system

A small detour from my present state of grappling with palingenesis:

Velikovsky was incorrect as far as his predictions of conditions on the planet Venus. When the Russians landed a couple of probes on the surface and found, not oil, not even burning mud, but intensely hot, dry rock bathed in sulfuric acid fumes, Velikovsky's day was over.

However, his high aptitude for research and speculation is uncommon.

For reasons unknown, todays headlines contain an article about whether there are other universes that cannot interact with ours and can never be detected. Just before the Big Bang there was a quantum instability. Such quantum instabilities must be happening all the time everywhere. Does each quantum instability give rise to a universe with some attributes --physical laws-- that may be the same as the laws of our universe or [usually] different? How many universes are beginning right now based on quantum instabilities within our own universe and the countless other universes? Can a universe is spawned from our own universe be detected? How many universes are there, and how many would be friendly to life as we know it?

Alan Guth asked some of these questions in his book "The Inflationary Universe" several years ago. I find it disquieting that one of the worldclass cosmologists can ask such questions and then say we can never know. It is like forming concepts of God, whether anthropocentric Christian models, or Unknowable Pagan models. Other universes are unknowable. What is the Cantor order of infinity of the number of other universes?