nonplussed comments on Justifiable Erroneous Scientific Pessimism - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 May 2013 08:37PM

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Comment author: nonplussed 14 May 2013 09:52:02PM 0 points [-]

Hm, I'm not sure the thermometer can conclude that it's accelerating from seeing the black body radiation. I think it's equivalent to there being an event horizon behind it emitting hawking radiation (this happens when you accelerate at a constant rate). The thermometer can't tell if it's next to a black hole or if it's accelerating. Could be wrong though, but I vaguely remember something along these lines.

Comment author: satt 15 May 2013 02:25:23AM 0 points [-]

I don't see anything incorrect in what you say. (Sounds to me like a direct consequence of the equivalence principle, although I'm no GR expert.) But I'm assuming away the possibility of rogue black holes in this hypothetical, since I'm wondering whether a sufficiently sensitive sensor could detect its own acceleration even inside an otherwise empty universe (or at least without reference to the rest of the cosmos).