411 REFERENCE · Wiktionary
Carter catastrophe
Reference material by Wiktionary contributors. This retains its source identity and is not 411 news reporting.
English
Etymology
Proposed by Cambridge cosmologist Brandon Carter in 1983.
Proper noun
An early version of the doomsday argument.
en William Poundstone The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation that Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe 2019 Little, Brown on https://books.google.com/books?id=_TFzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT45&dq=%22Carter+catastrophe%22&hl=&cd=2&source=gbs_api#v=onepage&q=%22Carter%20catastrophe%22&f=false 978-0-316-44071-4 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.”
en eponyms