English

Entropy and initial conditions in cosmology

High Energy Physics - Theory 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

I discuss the Boltzmann-Penrose question of why the initial conditions for cosmology have low entropy. The modern version of Boltzmann's answer to this question, due to Dyson, Kleban and Susskind, seems to imply that the typical intelligent observer arises through thermal fluctuation, rather than cosmology and evolution. I investigate whether this can be resolved within the string landscape. I end with a review of the suggestion that Holographic Cosmology provides a simpler answer to the problem. This paper is a revision of unpublished work from the spring of 2006, combined with my talk at the Madrid conference on String theory and Cosmology, Nov 2006.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0701146,
  title  = {Entropy and initial conditions in cosmology},
  author = {T. Banks},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0701146},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

JHEP Latex, 37 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:40:26.425Z