Carter catastrophe

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English

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Etymology

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Proposed by Cambridge cosmologist Brandon Carter in 1983.

Proper noun

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Carter catastrophe

  1. An early version of the doomsday argument.
    • [2019, William Poundstone, The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation that Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe[1], Little, Brown, →ISBN:
      Carter chose not to publish on doomsday, discussing it only in seminars where he thought it could get a fair hearing. In this way the doomsday argument began as a secret, almost samizdat doctrine, known to a few as the “Carter catastrophe.”]