Comment on "CCC-predicted low-variance circles in CMB sky and LCDM"
  In a recent preprint ("CCC-predicted low-variance circles in the CMB sky and
LCDM"), Gurzadyan and Penrose (2011) claim for the second time to find evidence
for pre-Big Bang activity in the form of concentric circles of low variance in
the WMAP data. The same claim was made in November 2010, but quickly shown to
be false by three independent groups. The culprit was simply that Gurzadyan and
Penrose's simulations were based on an inappropriate power spectrum. In the
most recent paper, they now claim that the significance is indeed low if the
simulations are based on the realization-specific WMAP spectrum (ie., the one
directly measured from the sky maps and affected by cosmic variance), but not
if the simulations are based on a theoretical LCDM spectrum. In this respect,
we note that the three independent reanalyses all based their simulations on
the LCDM spectrum, not the observed WMAP spectrum, and this alone should
suffice to show that the updated claims are also incorrect. In fact, it is
evident from the plots shown in their new paper that the spectrum is still
incorrect, although in a different way than in their first paper. Thus,
Gurzadyan and Penrose's new claims are just as wrong as those made in the first
paper, and for the same reason: The simulations are not based on an appropriate
power spectrum. Still, while this story is of little physical interest, it may
have some important implications in terms of scienctific sociology: Looking
back at the background papers leading up to the present series by Gurzadyan and
Penrose, in particular one introducing the Kolmogorov statistic, we believe one
can find evidence that a community based and open access referee process may be
more efficient at rejecting incorrect results and claims than a traditional
journal based approach.
