A big universe is a very interesting place to find ourselves. There are all sorts of weird philosophical complications if you think about it deeply.<p>I recommend the writings of Max Tegmark on philosophical cosmology. He's an exceptional popular science writer and doesn't dumb it down. <a href="http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html" rel="nofollow">http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html</a> The Multiverse Hierarchy is probably where to start.
I'm not a big fan of how these papers create a model of something they would like to find and them apply it to a massive dataset, then finding even small evidence for something the supports their model assuming it is really there.
Also see <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101210/full/news.2010.665.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101210/full/news.2010.665.ht...</a>
So, they've found patterns in the cosmic background radiation which, statistically speaking, would be incredibly likely to be there (you can also find triangles in it). And they're claiming these random fluctuations as proof for an entirely unproven model of the universe. Hmm.<p>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I'm not seeing any evidence.
Sounds like one of the latest Stargate Universe episodes: "The Ancients discovered complexity and coherence, neither naturally occurring, in the cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe." <a href="http://www.gateworld.net/universe/s2/207.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.gateworld.net/universe/s2/207.shtml</a>
Does anyone else feel this is about as equally cool as NASA's arsenic bugs hype? I mean I kind of assumed you could get bacteria to do that, but some (?) evidence of other universes - pretty cool.
This is very interesting, but the title should be more along the lines of "Astronomers find possible evidence...", not the definitive statement as it is currently written.