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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
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Editor's note: In the August issue of Scientific American, cosmologist George Ellis describes why he's skeptical about the concept of parallel universes. Here, multiverse proponents Alexander Vilenkin and Max Tegmark offer counterpoints, explaining why the multiverse would account for so many features of our universe—and how it might be tested.
Welcome to the Multiverse
By Alexander Vilenkin
The universe as we know it originated in a great explosion that we call the big bang. For nearly a century cosmologists have been studying the aftermath of this explosion: how the universe expanded and cooled down, and how galaxies were gradually pulled together by gravity. The nature of the bang itself has come into focus only relatively recently. It is the subject of the theory of inflation, which was developed in the early 1980s by Alan Guth, Andrei Linde and others, and has led to a radically new global view of the universe.
Inflation is a period of super-fast, accelerated expansion in early cosmic history. It is so fast that in a fraction of a second a tiny subatomic speck of space is blown to dimensions much greater than the entire currently observable region. At the end of inflation, the energy that drove the expansion ignites a hot fireball of particles and radiation. This is what we call the big bang.
The end of inflation is triggered by quantum, probabilistic processes and does not occur everywhere at once. In our cosmic neighborhood, inflation ended 13.7 billion years ago, but it still continues in remote parts of the universe, and other “normal” regions like ours are constantly being formed. The new regions appear as tiny, microscopic bubbles and immediately start to grow. The bubbles keep growing without bound; in the meantime they are driven apart by the inflationary expansion, making room for more bubbles to form. This never-ending process is called eternal inflation. We live in one of the bubbles and can observe only a small part of it. No matter how fast we travel, we cannot catch up with the expanding boundaries of our bubble, so for all practical purposes we live in a self-contained bubble universe.
The theory of inflation explained some otherwise mysterious features of the big bang, which simply had to be postulated before. It also made a number of testable predictions, which were then spectacularly confirmed by observations. By now inflation has become the leading cosmological paradigm.
Another key aspect of the new worldview derives from string theory, which is at present our best candidate for the fundamental theory of nature. String theory admits an immense number of solutions describing bubble universes with diverse physical properties. The quantities we call constants of nature, such as the masses of elementary particles, Newton’s gravitational constant, and so on, take different values in different bubble types. Now combine this with the theory of inflation. Each bubble type has a certain probability to form in the inflating space. So inevitably, an unlimited number of bubbles of all possible types will be formed in the course of eternal inflation.
This picture of the universe, or multiverse, as it is called, explains the long-standing mystery of why the constants of nature appear to be fine-tuned for the emergence of life. The reason is that intelligent observers exist only in those rare bubbles in which, by pure chance, the constants happen to be just right for life to evolve. The rest of the multiverse remains barren, but no one is there to complain about that.
Some of my physicist colleagues find the multiverse theory alarming. Any theory in physics stands or falls depending on whether its predictions agree with the data. But how can we verify the existence of other bubble universes? Paul Steinhardt and George Ellis have argued, for example, that the multiverse theory is unscientific, because it cannot be tested, even in principle.
Surprisingly, observational tests of the multiverse picture may in fact be possible. Anthony Aguirre, Matt Johnson, Matt Kleban and others have pointed out that a collision of our expanding bubble with another bubble in the multiverse would produce an imprint in the cosmic background radiation—a round spot of higher or lower radiation intensity. A detection of such a spot with the predicted intensity profile would provide direct evidence for the existence of other bubble universes. The search is now on, but unfortunately there is no guarantee that a bubble collision has occurred within our cosmic horizon.
There is also another approach that one can follow. The idea is to use our theoretical model of the multiverse to predict the constants of nature that we can expect to measure in our local region. If the constants vary from one bubble universe to another, their local values cannot be predicted with certainty, but we can still make statistical predictions. We can derive from the theory what values of the constants are most likely to be measured by a typical observer in the multiverse. Assuming that we are typical—the assumption that I called the principle of mediocrity—we can then predict the likely values of the constants in our bubble.
This strategy has been applied to the energy density of the vacuum, also known as “dark energy”. Steven Weinberg has noted that in regions where dark energy is large, it causes the universe to expand very fast, preventing mater from clumping into galaxies and stars. Observers are not likely to evolve in such regions. Calculations showed that most galaxies (and therefore most observers) are in regions where the dark energy is about the same as the density of matter at the epoch of galaxy formation. The prediction is therefore that a similar value should be observed in our part of the universe.
For the most part, physicists did not take these ideas seriously, but much to their surprise, dark energy of roughly the expected magnitude was detected in astronomical observations in the late 1990s. This could be our first evidence that there is indeed a huge multiverse out there. It has changed many minds.
The multiverse theory is still in its infancy, and some conceptual problems remain to be resolved. But, as Leonard Susskind wrote, “I would bet that at the turn of the 22nd century philosophers and physicists will look nostalgically at the present and recall a golden age in which the narrow provincial 20th century concept of the universe gave way to a bigger better [multiverse] ... of mind-boggling proportions.”
The Multiverse Strikes Back
By Max Tegmark
Do you really live in a multiverse, or is this notion beyond the pale of science?
Inspired by an interesting critique of multiverses in the August issue of Scientific American, penned by relativity pioneer George F. R. Ellis, let my give you my two cents' worth.
Multiverse ideas have traditionally received short shrift from the establishment: Giordano Bruno with his infinite-space multiverse got burned at the stake in 1600 and Hugh Everett with his quantum multiverse got burned on the physics job market in 1957. I've even felt some of the heat first-hand, with senior colleagues suggesting that my multiverse-related publications were nuts and would ruin my career. There's been a sea-change in recent years, however. Parallel universes are now all the rage, cropping up in books, movies and even jokes: "You passed your exam in many parallel universes—but not this one."
This airing of ideas certainly hasn't led to a consensus among scientists, but it's made the multiverse debate much more nuanced and, in my opinion, more interesting, with scientists moving beyond shouting sound bites past each other and genuinely trying to understand opposing points of view. George Ellis's new article is a great example of this, and I highly recommend reading it if you haven't already.
By our universe, I mean the spherical region of space from which light has had time to reach us during the 13.7 billion years since our big bang. When talking about parallel universes, I find it useful to distinguish between four different levels: Level I (other such regions far away in space where the apparent laws of physics are the same, but where history played out differently because things started out differently), Level II (regions of space where even the apparent laws of physics are different), Level III (parallel worlds elsewhere in the so-called Hilbert space where quantum reality plays out), and Level IV (totally disconnected realities governed by different mathematical equations).
In his critique, George classifies many of the arguments in favor of these multiverse levels and argues that they all have problems. Here's my summary of his main anti-multiverse arguments:
1) Inflation may be wrong (or not eternal)
2) Quantum mechanics may be wrong (or not unitary)
3) String theory may be wrong (or lack multiple solutions)
4) Multiverses may be unfalsifiable
5) Some claimed multiverse evidence is dubious
6) Fine-tuning arguments may assume too much
7) It's a slippery slope to even bigger multiverses
(George didn't actually mention (2) in the article, but I'm adding it here because I think he would have if the editor had allowed him more than six pages.)
What's my take on this critique? Interestingly, I agree with all of these seven statements—and nonetheless, I'll still happily bet my life savings on the existence of a multiverse!
Let's start with the first four. Inflation naturally produces the Level I multiverse, and if you add in string theory with a landscape of possible solutions, you get Level II, too. Quantum mechanics in its mathematically simplest ("unitary") form gives you Level III. So if these theories are ruled out, then key evidence for these multiverses collapses.
Remember: Parallel universes are not a theory—they are predictions of certain theories.
To me, the key point is that if theories are scientific, then it's legitimate science to work out and discuss all their consequences even if they involve unobservable entities. For a theory to be falsifiable, we need not be able to observe and test all its predictions, merely at least one of them. My answer to (4) is therefore that what's scientifically testable are our mathematical theories, not necessarily their implications, and that this is quite OK. For example, because Einstein's theory of general relativity has successfully predicted many things that we can observe, we also take seriously its predictions for things we cannot observe, e.g., what happens inside black holes.
Likewise, if we're impressed by the successful predictions of inflation or quantum mechanics so far, then we need to take seriously also their other predictions, including the Level I and Level III multiverse. George even mentions the possibility that eternal inflation may one day be ruled out—to me, this is simply an argument that eternal inflation is a scientific theory.
String theory certainly hasn't come as far as inflation and quantum mechanics in terms of establishing itself as a testable scientific theory. However, I suspect that we'll be stuck with a Level II multiverse even if string theory turns out to be a red herring. It's quite common for mathematical equations to have multiple solutions, and as long as the fundamental equations describing our reality do, then eternal inflation generically creates huge regions of space that physically realize each of these solutions. For example, the equations governing water molecules, which have nothing to do with string theory, permit the three solutions corresponding to steam, liquid water and ice, and if space itself can similarly exist in different phases, inflation will tend to realize them all.
George lists a number of observations purportedly supporting multiverse theories that are dubious at best, like evidence that certain constants of nature aren't really constant, evidence in the cosmic microwave background radiation of collisions with other universes or strangely connected space, etc. I totally share his skepticism to these claims. In all these cases, however, the controversies have been about the analysis of the data, much like in the cold fusion debacle. To me, the very fact that scientists are making these measurements and arguing about data details is further evidence that this is within the pale of science: this is precisely what separates a scientific controversy from a nonscientific one!
Our universe appears surprisingly fine-tuned for life in the sense that if you tweaked many of our constants of nature by just a tiny amount, life as we know it would be impossible. Why? If there's a Level II multiverse where these "constants" take all possible values, it's not surprising that we find ourselves in one of the rare universes that are inhabitable, just like it's not surprising that we find ourselves living on Earth rather than Mercury or Neptune. George objects to the fact that you need to assume a multiverse theory to draw this conclusion, but that's how we test any scientific theory: we assume that it's true, work out the consequences, and discard the theory if the predictions fail to match the observations. Some of the fine-tuning appears extreme enough to be quite embarrassing—for example, we need to tune the dark energy to about 123 decimal places to make habitable galaxies. To me, an unexplained coincidence can be a tell-tale sign of a gap in our scientific understanding. Dismissing it by saying "We just got lucky—now stop looking for an explanation!" is not only unsatisfactory, but is also tantamount to ignoring a potentially crucial clue.
George argues that if we take seriously that anything that could happen does happen, we're led down a slippery slope toward even larger multiverses, like the Level IV one. Since this is my favorite multiverse level, and I'm one of the very few proponents of it, this is a slope that I'm happy to slide down!
George also mentions that multiverses may fall foul of Occam's razor by introducing unnecessary complications. As a theoretical physicist, I judge the elegance and simplicity of a theory not by its ontology, but by the elegance and simplicity of its mathematical equations—and it's quite striking to me that the mathematically simplest theories tend to give us multiverses. It's proven remarkably hard to write down a theory which produces exactly the universe we see and nothing more.
Finally, there's an anti-multiverse argument which I commend George for avoiding, but which is in my opinion the most persuasive one of all for most people: the parallel universes just seems too weird to be true.
Having looked at anti-multiverse arguments, let's now analyze the pro-multiverse case a bit more closely. I'm going to argue that all the controversial issues melt away if we accept the External Reality Hypothesis: there exists an external physical reality completely independent of us humans. Suppose that this hypothesis is correct. Then most multiverse critique rests on some combination of the following three dubious assumptions:
1) Omnivision assumption: physical reality must be such that at least one observer can in principle observe all of it.
2) Pedagogical reality assumption: physical reality must be such that all reasonably informed human observers feel they intuitively understand it.
3) No-copy assumption: no physical process can copy observers or create subjectively indistinguishable observers.
(1) and (2) appear to be motivated by little more than human hubris. The omnivision assumption effectively redefines the word "exists'' to be synonymous with what is observable to us humans, akin to an ostrich with its head in the sand. Those who insist on the pedagogical reality assumption will typically have rejected comfortingly familiar childhood notions like Santa Claus, local realism, the Tooth Fairy, and creationism—but have they really worked hard enough to free themselves from comfortingly familiar notions that are more deeply rooted? In my personal opinion, our job as scientists is to try to figure out how the world works, not to tell it how to work based on our philosophical preconceptions.
If the omnivision assumption is false, then there are unobservable things that exist and we live in a multiverse.
If the pedagogical reality assumption is false, then the objection that multiverses are too weird makes no logical sense.
If the no-copy assumption is false, then there's no fundamental reason why there can't be copies of you elsewhere in the external reality—indeed, both eternal inflation and unitary quantum mechanics provide mechanisms for creating them.
We humans have a well-documented tendency toward hubris, arrogantly imagining ourselves at center stage, with everything revolving around us. We've gradually learned that it's instead we who are revolving around the sun, which is itself revolving around one galaxy among countless others. Thanks to breakthroughs in physics, we may be gaining still deeper insights into the very nature of reality.
The price we have to pay is becoming more humble—which will probably do us good—but in return we may find ourselves inhabiting a reality grander than our ancestors dreamed of in their wildest dreams.
Additional Reading:
Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes. Alex Vilenkin. Hill and Wang, 2006.
The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design. Leonard Susskind. Back Bay Books, 2006.
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Hidden Laws of the Cosmos. Brian Greene. Knopf, 2011.
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122 Comments
Add CommentIs anyone else getting an alert box on this page that says "The server.dev.sciam.com:80 at Sciam Protected Access requires a username and password."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Here, multiverse proponent multiverse proponents" - proof enough for me proof enough for me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYES - I get a login please box everytime I refresh or change pages. their html is wacked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI even am prompted to login if I attempt to copy a sentence!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've always doubted the age of the universe and the setting of the age - it is a wild guesstimate at best, given that time itself was involved in the bang and the expansion and the distortions of all forces and energies. 13.whatever billion years is just a convenient excuse for "we don't have a clue" only a local reference point, and an abnormal one at that. For me there is no beginning and no end that I can possibly comprehend. A thousand years is an eternity for me because I will never live even one tenth of that, so billions become the definition of endless; we can call it whatever we create, but for all practical and real purposes, there never was any beginning and there never will be an end to all of this, never. Put whatever label or number you choose; in real, human terms, the universe is the very definition of endless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I understand non-duality, all that there is is made from one energy, so it seems obvious there would be patterns repeated throughout; the universe and the mind are modeled on the same pattern - can we perceive a limit to our minds? Can we see the edge? Is there ever any expansion? Some people claim to be able to imagine being outside of themselves (or even actually traveling outside themselves!) and so it seems, in reflecting back on the universe, why not more than just the habitually egocentric ONE that we repeatedly revise, as the article points out? Wrong about the sun, wrong about the galaxy... typical of man to wonder are we the only ones; to have that thought creates the likelihood of the answer being, no,stupid, we're not alone at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisexodus88 received such a log in box today, and I have to wonder why as I am already logged in
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to question the presumption that the universe was initially contained within a hypothetical singularity. The only support for an initial unphysical singularity is that it is the ultimate mathematical interpolation of the observed expansion of the universe. We are making an enormous leap of faith here: we observe an inflating balloon and conclude it must have begun as a singularity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the universe was initially much larger than a singularity and did not require any superluminal inflationary period to reach an intermediate initial size... Would that change anything?
I have to question the presumption that the universe was initially contained within a hypothetical singularity. The only support for an initial unphysical singularity is that it is the ultimate mathematical interpolation of the observed expansion of the universe. We are making an enormous leap of faith here: we observe an inflating balloon and conclude it must have begun as a singularity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the universe was initially much larger than a singularity and did not require any superluminal inflationary period to reach an intermediate initial size... Would that change anything?
I share your doubt. 13.7 billion years is only our visible horizon. Objects at that distance are expanding away from us at the speed of light. That's not to say there isn't more beyond that horizon. Galaxies that are moving (so called dark flow) toward a point that lacks the necessary mass suggest that the mass may be beyond our visible horizon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, according to M-Theory, singularities do not really exist. The smallest you can get is a loop of a string. But it is so small, we cannot measure it because anything we could use to make the measurement would be much larger that the loop.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI keep hearing as well that there are 11 dimensions and only four are unfolded but I suspect that they are all unfolded, we just cannot percieve the other dimensions because we do not have any senses capable of sensing them. We are bound by the paradigm of our own physical makeup and sensual apparatus.
Yikes, that's weird. Can you post a screenshot?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor nearly four years I have been a proponent of multiverse, the creation of Universes by a systematic birthing process. In the beginning of our Universe we find the first moments of inflationary expansion was driven by matter and anti-matter particles, the subatomic particles found at the first moment of creation can only be found now by breaking apart atoms at CERN. There is one other way to break atoms into their component subatomic parts and separating them in the quantity necessary to create a universe, a Black Hole.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have theorized that Black Holes could be birthing chambers for new Universes and could collect enough material to create Universes in multitude. First, our Universe is finite in size, a parent Universe maybe of significantly larger size than that of the offspring but still finite. On the atomic scale atoms are disassembled by Black Holes and their parts seperated into clusters, they then would reassembled in the reverse order once released from the Black Hole on exit of the birthing chamber. The order in which atomic and subatomic particles exited the Black Hole should be proof of our own Universes creation, physicists can look at the material release order of subatomic particles at the moment of creation of our own Universe. This theory would account for Inflationary expansion driven by a force powerful enough to drive inflation and create our bubble Universe and would be predictable mathematically.
I have postulated that all Universes would reproduce in an exact duplicate Child Universe, the duplicate of the parent would only be limited by the amount of material released in creation. Chemical compounds would be produced in the same order at the moment of creation for each Universe, just like our Universe they would be spread equally across the Universes. This would take place in the same order as the parent Universe in what could be considered the DNA or copying process of Universes.
Black Holes would have constants, how material is collected and separated under pressure and gravity, and how the release of material would create a constant in the assembly process for the creation of new Universes.
Ronald Nussbeck
I find the articles extremely interesting. Thank you. However, does anyone else see the the statement below from the first article being guilty of the statement from the second? It seems to me the argument is being made both ways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The reason is that intelligent observers exist only in those rare bubbles in which, by pure chance, the constants happen to be just right for life to evolve." Alexander Vilenkin
"We humans have a well-documented tendency toward hubris, arrogantly imagining ourselves at center stage, with everything revolving around us." Max Tegmark
Additionally, if one believes in the multiverse idea and, indeed, believes that all possibilities do actually exist then some absolute being, call him God, exists somewhere and, since he is absolute, must have taken control of everything at some point in the eternal past which, would suppose he has subsequently taken control of all multiverses - including ours at some point. Isn't this, at least, an acceptable possibility based on the ideas stated in the above articles? If not, then I total missunderstand the points made in the article. I would have to agree that we are guilty of extreme hubris which is not only a problem but appears to be an insurrmountable one.
Inflation may be wrong (or not eternal ?). I don't doubt that parallel universes exist, but about eternity I think this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe integer numbers Z are infinite. We can assign in abstract the numbers of every year to each number Z. In this way our time is infinite in the past and in the future. But, without taking account of the elasticity of the space-time, is the real time also infinite? Is it possible in other words to find a mathematical proof which shows that time is either finite or infinite?
The numbers Z are in some way static, because we can have and use them every time we want. The time instead, at least that time which we are experiencing every day, is never stopping and goes always in only one direction without for us – in this epoch at least – to have the possibility to go back. It is like the time is dynamic, in contrast of the laziness of the set of numbers. In fact if we with fantasy are taking a special train which travels along the time in the future or in the past and count the years that we are travelling through, we are never arriving at one end, because we must start from some year and this length will be always finite. But all the other years are there all the same. But if such a special train is coming here from the infinite past, it must have started form some point and this last point can't be the infinity because in this case it can be only an integer number! So our time is finite, and the only way to link it with the infinity of the numbers it is to cycle it over and over again an infinite times, so at the end – after billions of billions of years – it will come again at the same point like before . . . and so it will be always the same, like to turn around the world one come always at the same point!
>> At the end of inflation, the energy that drove the expansion ignites a hot fireball of particles and radiation. This is what we call the big bang. >>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this statement correct? The big bang came AFTER inflation?
I am just an interested layman, but I would swear that I have read many times that inlfation occurred AFTER the big bang.
Overlapping multiple universes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA few years back I was staring at a cover of a science magazine (must have been Sci-Am) which featured an article on parallel universes. I was pondering whether it could be so or not:
. either many parallel universes
or just
. ne universe
Then suddenly I saw a solution:
It is not an either-or thing at all...: OVERLAPPING multiple universes will do the trick!
Simply said it goes like this:
You and I live in different universes, but in our case (meaning at least that it counts for all humans) both our universes (and at least all other human's universes) are not just very closely parallel, they also happen to be 'overlapping'... thus they are so intricately superposed that most parts and dynamics (the ones we are aware of) APPEAR as though they occur in 'one universe only'. We are calling it 'Our World'... but that is a very limited appellation only.
Using the analogy of waves (and simplifying it): waves do this overlapping all the time, e.g. two waves coming in from different directions: when they meet they can be twice as high, twice as deep, they can cancel each other out, and they can be many other sizes in between, however, when any of this happens they always APPEAR to be one and the same wave.
Now imagine this to take place with multiple waves, a maelstrom of waves... but all one scene!
So far, this view works for me... it has solved a lot of seeming incongruities for me.
. either many parallel universes
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisor just
. ne universe
is supposed to read:
. either many parallel universes
or just
. one universe
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves.Until we find out exactly what space-time is.How can we figure out what's going on in any other universe until we know what's going on in this one?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that there are may big bang models. It seems that in most of them the inflationary period is the initial phase of the big bang, but still included as a component of big bang theory. Please see:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang#Speculative_physics_beyond_Big_Bang_theory
IMO, since there is insufficient information to determine the precise events and conditions that produced the observed universe, there are many potential theories with not much means to distinguish between them.
"This picture of the universe, or multiverse, as it is called, explains the long-standing mystery of why the constants of nature appear to be fine-tuned for the emergence of life."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishuh! As a geoloogist I counter with...'utter rubbish'.
Multiverse Theory using Chemical Compound Construction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur Universe was created with the instructions for life encode in the a Quantum wave length vibration Harmonic that allowed Atoms to assemble into pure Chemical compounds.
The Standard Model (SM) has six flavors of quarks, up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. All of these quarks have corresponding Antiquarks that contain the same
mass and means and lifetime, they also have their own spin of their respective quarks but
an electrical charge that is opposite each other (antiquarks vs quarks).
Quarks posses color charge that cause them to engage in strong interaction between different quarks causing the formation of composite particle known as hadrons.
A property that quarks posses is called color charge, they are labeled blue, green and red, correspondingly antiquarks carry anti colors allowing for attraction and repulsion between quarks of different
charges.
Creating combinations of the three colors is called strong
interaction mediated by particles called gluons. Quarks are known to engage in interactions of the four forces,electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear and weak nuclear.
Each having electric charge, mass, color charge and flavor which is described as Color flavor locking
(CFL) is seen in ultra high density quark matter.
Within the Quantum color wave length vibration lies the wavelength which carries the instructions for the orbital alignment of quarks and anti quarks which
ultimately control the orbital alignment of protons within the atom with certainty.
The Quantum Singular wavelength color harmonic vibration determines the production of all atom Chemical compounds constructed in the matrix.
From a single color wavelength harmonic vibration came the complete instructions for all atomic construction in the Universe.
Every Universe including our own would have the exact duplicate creation Chemicals compound Atoms as the parent Universe.
The Theory for Multiverse Universes developing out of Black Holes has gained traction within the Cosmology community as it completes many aspects of theoretical Physics.
First, Black Holes are capable of providing the energy needed to complete Inflation of a Universe.
Second, They are capable of providing the material needed to fill the Universe with high quantities of matter and anti-matter.
Third and most important, Black Holes transfer information from one Universe to another without losing instructions for Human life construction, information can not be created or destroyed by Black Holes.
Ronald Nussbeck
"Our universe appears surprisingly fine-tuned for life in the sense that if you tweaked many of our constants of nature by just a tiny amount, life as we know it would be impossible. Why? If there's a Level II multiverse where these "constants" take all possible values, it's not surprising that we find ourselves in one of the rare universes that are inhabitable, just like it's not surprising that we find ourselves living on Earth rather than Mercury or Neptune. George objects to the fact that you need to assume a multiverse theory to draw this conclusion, but that's how we test any scientific theory: we assume that it's true, work out the consequences, and discard the theory if the predictions fail to match the observations. Some of the fine-tuning appears extreme enough to be quite embarrassing—for example, we need to tune the dark energy to about 123 decimal places to make habitable galaxies. To me, an unexplained coincidence can be a tell-tale sign of a gap in our scientific understanding. Dismissing it by saying "We just got lucky—now stop looking for an explanation!" is not only unsatisfactory, but is also tantamount to ignoring a potentially crucial clue."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe REAL point they are ignoring:
Why do we feel the need to create an infinite number of universes just to negate the possiblity of a purposeful Creator?
It seems things would be so much clearer if most people were not under the influence of the post-modern secular matra: "There is no God".
When Steven Hawkins said Black Holes destroy information the Physicists of the World spent 10 years and proved he was wrong, information can not be created or destroyed. With that said any information collected by a Black Hole will be transported to it's new destination and reassembled without lose of information. This means in Theory that information like energy can not ever be destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another and back again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would mean all Multiverses would contain the same information and that Chemical Compound Atoms would be the same at the end point of a Black Hole, this means Human life would result under the same circumstances as life on Earth. With Billions of Galaxy's and Trillions of Planets in the Universe the chance of duplication of Earth on the other side of the Universe is 100%, the chance that you would be duplicated in our Universe on another Planet is 100%, since there can only be so many different possibilities for Human life forms before they duplicate. Multiverse is more logical and possible than a Big Bang or Membrane Theory.
Ronald Nussbeck
I beg to differ from the statements made in the last paragraph about our anscestors. We in India never believed we were the centre of everything. Infact the opposite is hailed. The concept of bubbles is well explained and is called andam in sanskrit in the "vedas". It claims there are many andams in the cosmos (your multiverses). I know everyone hates to mix science and philosophy, but anstronomy is the conjoiner. Believe it or not one can decipher ideas of relativity from the vedas. There is no better proof than you analysing it yourself. If people like me can understand this much, imagine what the physicsts can gain from it. Remember all who say they know the vedic science are not right. Hardly a handfull in India know it. The greatest difficulty for someone who wishes to read it is to find the right source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho said: "There are other worlds, but them all are inside this one". Tooth fairy = Ratón Perez (Perez mouse)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the universe was bigger in the past, then light would have to travel at superluminal speeds to explain the isotropy in the cosmic microwave background. The fact that the universe is expanding is only one piece in a chain of evidence for the big bang.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do some people feel the need to create a purposeful Creator just to negate the possiblity of parallel universes? It seems things would be so much clearer if most people were not under the influence of the ancient superstitious belief: "There is God".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou should notice that I do not negate the possiblity of multiple cosmos's. However, we should not dismiss out of hand an obvious solution with another that is possibly even more tenuous and unprovable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour antipathy toward religious superstition should not preclude the possiblity of a Creator. There IS a vaste difference between the two.
Multiverse Theory does not change facts in physics, information can not be created or destroyed, this means information would transfer efficiently from one Universe to another by Black Holes. A Creator means certainty in the design of Atoms and the assembly of subatomic parts when forming Chemical compounds, this does seem to be the case. Protons orbit, spin and color are in direct relation to quarks and antiquarks orbit and spin. This once again shows design and certainty in every aspect in creation of Atoms with Pure Chemical compounds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne certainly can not rule out Creation and when looking closer at Atoms construction, it seem apparent this maybe the case.
Ronald Nussbeck
I don't have antipathy toward religious superstition, on the contrary, it is a good philosophy, but it is a block against an open mind. A few catholic scientistists are against evolution for example, and this is against science and the low of nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt depends on what you mean by "big bang". Some people use the term to refer to the putative singularity at which space and time came into existence. Inflation came after this event (clearly). Others, including me, prefer to use "big bang" to refer to the observed phenomenon of cosmic expansion, a process that is still ongoing. Inflation preceded this phenomenon and indeed may have set it in motion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo address your first question, no, those two statements are not in contradiction; they are really saying the same thing -- namely, we need to correct for the selection bias created by the fact we exist. To use an analogy, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I should not be surprised to find myself in a bedroom, because that is where most people sleep. If I don't take this fact into account, I might be tempted to conclude that all rooms in the world are bedrooms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, if the theory supposes all possibilities have occured, then how can you or any person decide that one possibilitiy, that of God's existence, has not. Then all possibilities do not exist and the theory is nonsense. That is how a person assumes God in the theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing religious and being a scientist are not mutually exclusive. I, as a religious person, accept science attempting to prove the "how" of things. I accept religion attempting to explain the "why" of things. The conflict between science and religion occurs when science attempts to explain "why" and when religion attempts to explain "how". The God I believe is not bothered with explaining how...only why. He leaves the "how" for us to discover on our own.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statement plainly assumes our multiverse is "special". We either have a problem with being somehow special or we do not. Which is it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statement plainly assumes our multiverse is "special". We either have a problem with being somehow special or we do not. Which is it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne does not have to make assumption about God's existence, the evidence will speak of Him and if certainty is found in the construct means we are created. Mulitverses are the most reinvent answer to how our Universe came to be, it has a beginning and it will have an end, ergo, created.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA University assembled 100 140 IQ students to solve a problem, they went head to head with a single student with an I.Q. of 188, the single student solved the problem some twenty hours earlier than the 100 students. The moral of the story is that our Creator likely wanted us to solve the problem with considerable effort and intellect so as the proof would be conclusive.
A Multiverse will lead man to know peace, a life of comfort knowing creation took place and Spirituality at heart of society.
In the end did we really think we were so special or different from Universes? It is now apparent that our Universe is Finite in size and life span and time is a measurement meant for man so he can find relevance. This would mean there is an Infinite place where time does not matter and there is a place there for man.
Ronald Nussbeck
Speaking of multiverses,if God exists.Is there a God for each universe?Or is there a God over all of them?If he is then what a powerful being he must be.The farther we look out in our universe the more powerful and infinite he seems to be,but an infinite number of universes,Can you say wow?That said what might the outer darkness be?And it also says in Revelations there will be new Earth's and universes.What does that mean?Good luck figuring that out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is interesting to note that Hebrews 11:3 (king James verson) says: "Through faith we understand that the worlds (plural) were framed by the word of God, so that things that are seen were not made of things which do appear" Other translations (phillips) say: "the whole scheme of time and space was created....."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should not presume to put an absolute interpretation on this text--but it is noteworthy that even in the Greek, the term for "worlds" used here is plural.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, guess what? It is a duck, not a giraffe. In this case, the "duck" is intelligent design. It is absolutely mind-boggling to see the chasms theorists are willing to leap in order to not admit the obvious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho created the creator? Infinite regression, circular reasoning, reduction to absurdity. It is nonsense. It is not nonsensical in itself but any statement about it must be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ancient Greeks had the simplest theory. Nothing can come from nothing. Everything that exists had always existed. No need to postulate a creator.
Science is made of questions and answers, many questions, little answers. And many times answers are opening more questions. Only proof is the final answer. Parallel universes and the existence of God are big questions: All is possible and many answers are there, but the final answer with a proof didn't come yet, so one can have personal independent opinions as one likes. Personally I think that the final answer to the parallel universes, even if not so near, will come for sure a lot first than the answer of the existence of God. Trusting God is in general good, but one must not forget that also fundamentalists muslin trust one God, or that Bible's religions are against stopping new births even for people who died for famine. For me if one is not trusting God can see the laws of Nature better without religious blocks, because religions don't have updates to get them better (but personally I think irrationally all the same that somebody could help me if I pray, perhaps from the multi-universes!).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing unreal exists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this13.721 billion years! Fact. My grandfather was there and he took photos. I can't find them just now, but I've got 'em somewhere.
The parallel universe is the aethereal universe: the aether is the origin of the matter: i.e. God created the matter from the aether.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/index.htm#Ether
The ethereal heavens or the kingdom of heavens are the spiritual heavens which are the issue of the material heavens that were destroyed in the previous Doomsdays.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/index.htm#The_Ethereal_Heavens
See about the formation of the solar systems and their destruction in Doomsdays here:
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/index.htm#Formation_of_the_Planets_
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/new_page_4.htm#What_Is_Doomsday
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/new_page_4.htm#Formation_of_the_New_Planets
After reading this article I am again reminded of the similar schools of thought that modern science and religion share in. This article utilizes numerous theories,(speculative at best),which are cherry picked and carefully assembled to allow the author to arrive at his own,(the authors), preconceived ideas. At some point the reader,(or believer), just has to make the decision to BELIEVE that it is true. The reader has to have FAITH that what he is being told is the ageless truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimilarly most religions in the world today put forth religious theories that are carefully assembled. Logically leading those interested to the groups religious beliefs. And these as well must make a decision as to truth of what they hear. Those who join such religions BELIEVE and have FAITH that what they have been told is true.
I'll let you in on a little secret, they are both wrong. If you want to know the TRUTH find the website "The Voice of Elijah". nuff said
chet
Do you think when you look at the mirror, what you see is you. By the time, the light travel from you to the mirror and back to your eye, what you look at is a different you than yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The universe as we know it originated in a great explosion that we call the big bang."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Big Bang is just an event within an existing universe. It is derived from Hebrew creation myth. Scientists say, "We can explain it back to one ten-billionth of a second." But they have only shortened the creation myth. They have not explained anything regarding where the bang came from, or why it was configured in such a specific way.
As for parallel universes, this is a question for philosophers. The scientists are fooling themselves into thinking they are prepared.
Unfortunately Western philosophy committed suicide in the 19th century with the "Critique of Pure Reason". Since then the scientists have fallen into their looking-glasses.
I had a dream: one of my twin brothers living in the multiverse sent me a letter asking me: are you moving faster than we do so are you older or younger than I am and what is your name? Are you a clone of the first Hartwig Thim living in the original universe or am I the original?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope Dr. Woit and Lee Smolin will soon come up with new books something like "there is no trouble with physics, there are many troubles with physicists or so to speak "multitroubles".
I am very glad to be an electrical engineer and the many electrical light sources (lamps) in my house are not called "multilamps" and all of them light up at the same time when I switch on one of them.
Does anybody have a problem with understanding why I am
so glad having a valid diploma in electrical engineering and that I am still getting my monthly payment from social security?
I had a dream: one of my twin brothers living in the multiverse sent me a letter asking me: are you moving faster than we do so are you older or younger than I am and what is your name? Are you a clone of the first Hartwig Thim living in the original universe or am I the original?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope Dr. Woit and Lee Smolin will soon come up with new books something like "there is no trouble with physics, there are many troubles with physicists or so to speak "multitroubles".
I am very glad to be an electrical engineer and the many electrical light sources (lamps) in my house are not called "multilamps" and all of them light up at the same time when I switch on one of them.
Does anybody have a problem with understanding why I am
so glad having a valid diploma in electrical engineering and that I am still getting my monthly payment (I am a retired engineer) from social security?
The 11 dimensional framework (which is necessary to the Standard Model) goes back at least as far as Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann and seems to demand or require a multiverse. But hey, who really knows for certain? Maybe the earth is really flat after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe aether particles are far more minute that the particles of the matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod created the particles of the matter by compacting the particles of the aether.
This aether fills the space and is everywhere in the universe.
The planets and the moons float or swim in the waves of the aether.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/index.htm#Ether
The aether world is the spiritual world: i.e. the spirit and the soul and the angels all belong to the aether world; the afterlife world is the aethereal world.
To every material object there is its mirror image or true copy of the aethre: an aethereal structure which is exactly similar to the material mould.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/man/index.htm#The_Matter_and_the_Ether_
Parallel universes have a mathematical base, like the imaginary number with root of –1 have very good solutions, even if they are . . . imaginary. God or an Intelligent Designer are only Logic, like it is seems logic if I say: Since I don't trust God I never say the truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article should NOT be equating creation science to childhood fairy tales. That is foolishness and ignorance. Creation science is a science-backed perspective that uses the same evidence as the old earth view. People should not be afraid of different interpretations of the evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood dicussion,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislook at my article in the SCIENTIFIC GOD JOURNAL :
www.scigod.com/index.php/sgi/article/viewfile/115/135
Reality out of Total Simultaneity.
keep on thinking free
Wilhelmus
First, George Ellis deserves credit for going against the tide building in favor of the multiverse and providing a concise argument for what many others believe: the multiverse is more philosophical speculation that science. As he notes, it's hard to conceive of a greater violation of Occam's razor than postulating the existence of an infinity of unknown universes to explain known universe. Second, the counterpoint offered by Max Tegmark is also well-done and insightful. Tegmark should be credited for not avoiding the fact that the "External Reality Hypothesis" -- that a real world exists independently of human perception -- underlies the multiverse, and in fact all of modern cosmological theory. The real issue, in my mind, is whether this underlying assumption is true. A host of western and eastern philosophers have concluded it is not true. Might they be right after all? And, might it be advantageous for scientists to spend a small bit of their time determining whether they can still practice science if consciousness -- as in fact quantum theory strongly suggests -- contributes to this outside world? Would this result be any stranger or less scientific than the multiverse? Or, might a mind-created world be one of the infinity of possible universes? (Disclosure: Commenter is author of The Heaven at the End of Science, which takes this last point to its logical conclusion.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf only we could invent a parallel universe time machine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.comicdaverusso.blogspot.com
Cremation Ground Of Giant Creatures In Central Africa | Alien Theory
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://funnyandspicy.com/cremation-ground-of-giant-creatures-in-central-africa
"To me, an unexplained coincidence can be a tell-tale sign of a gap in our scientific understanding. Dismissing it by saying "We just got lucky—now stop looking for an explanation!" is not only unsatisfactory, but is also tantamount to ignoring a potentially crucial clue."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd suggesting, as Ellis does, that "intent or purpose" (code for God) is a viable explanation, is doing just that. "God" is code for: the world's ultimate nature is inexplicable, we can never understand it, so let's hope that somehow it all ultimately makes sense.
Perhaps ultimately it all does make sense. Whether or not that is so, a multiverse certainly makes sense of the otherwise inexplicable degree of fine tuning of dark energy density. Inflationary theory is expanded to account not just for the distribution of matter but for the laws governing them. The observations and the nature of the laws of our universe allow for this.
Hypotheses which make sense of otherwise inexplicable things are useful in so far as they can be used as guides for research. We don't need the God hypothesis for fine tuning just yet.
Sorry, I made a mistake in the address , it must be :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/viewFile/115/135.
keep on thinking free
Wilhelmus
The "Seeable" Universe is 13.7 Billion years old, if you "Reverse" it, as in a Movie played backwards. That has been shown, through research findings. That is the "Realm" in which we explore and discover,(ie;the frontier of Astronomy and Cosmology). Some "Comments" I have read here, are more "subjective" than "objective", and are really Opinions, thereby, unverifiable,without the "Scientific Method". Remember, for a concept to make it to the level of "Theory", it has to go through a prescribed number of validating "steps" to reach that level within any RESPONSIBLE "Scientific Community". Just because ONE "FEELS" it may be "TRUE", don't necessarilly make it so! The "Theory of EVOLUTION", as case in point, isn't just a thought put to publication and continued research; it has long "Passed the Test" in becoming a Scientifically Validated THEORUM, GUYS!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "Seeable" Universe is 13.7 Billion years old, if you "Reverse" it, as in a Movie played backwards. That has been shown, through research findings. That is the "Realm" in which we explore and discover,(ie;the frontier of Astronomy and Cosmology). Some "Comments" I have read here, are more "subjective" than "objective", and are really Opinions, thereby, unverifiable,without the "Scientific Method". Remember, for a concept to make it to the level of "Theory", it has to go through a prescribed number of validating "steps" to reach that level within any RESPONSIBLE "Scientific Community". Just because ONE "FEELS" it may be "TRUE", don't necessarilly make it so! The "Theory of EVOLUTION", as case in point, isn't just a thought put to publication and continued research; it has long "Passed the Test" in becoming a Scientifically Validated THEORUM, GUYS!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't forget: "if" you reverse the film from 13,7 billion yeras ago in real time it will take another 13,7 billion years to come to the BEGINNING, if we are able to faster as light we will be able to look at signals that originate from a time that we call the past (to be more specific : it is from the universe that we are observing, not a paralel universe), so the faster we go the faster the film will go backwards, I am not a mathematician so I cannot give you the exact "time" needed to arrive at the BEGINNING.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this mind experiment we at first assume that we can follow the life-line of OUR Universe, perhaps we are while going backwards in the time line meeting points where there is a choice of roads to other universes that would have existed if...
I indicate here that the velocity of light is (like Einstein told us before but everybody misunderstood) local, different localities can have different C.
The NOW moment that we are "living" in now is not existing, it is a moment in our causal deterministic universe that is eternally existing in what I call TOTAL SIMULTANEITY..
(see : http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/913)
keep on thinking free
Wilhelmus
To every material object there is its ethereal mirror image.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ether permeates the material object and go inbetween its inter-particle spaces to take an ethereal structure inside the material object which is exactly like the matreial object; i.e. the material object will be a mould for forming the ethereal structures: these ethereal structures will be like the material object exactly.
The ethereal structure will be the mirror image or the true copy of the material object.
The material object will undergo changes and will be destroyed, while the ethereal structure is stable and will remain forever.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/man/index.htm#Formation_of_the_Soul_Inside_the_Body_
The ether is like the air, but its particle are very much smaller.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.quran-ayat.com/man/index.htm#ether_
The great minds of the World now know that our Universe was not created out of Chaos but Created with Certainty. Atomic and Subatomic particle seem like complexly assembled Compounds and Mater with opposite anti-mater particles, now it is becoming apparent they were Created to be assembled and disassembled allowing for Multiverses of which our Universe is just one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading some posts of Atheists who have anti-God beliefs it becomes clear they are promoting "Chaos" as their Theory of everything, shame on them, unable to contribute to Science's most relevant theory of Multiverse in an intellectual way.
CERN has broken open the Atom in a way that has lead to new understandings of subatomic particles and their function within the Atom.
Physicists have proven that Black Holes do not destroy or created information, energy but show they are reduced to wavelengths that vibrate after entering the Black Hole and on upon exit it is Postulated that they are then reassembled to their exact origin.
Black Holes have the capacity to collect matter, energy in quantity sufficient to produce a Universe at it's exit and cause inflation of a new Universe.
It is Theorized that Black Holes may link together both in the Parent Universe from time to time and their tails may also link funneling information and matter into the new Universe. It is gravity that pulls the tails of Black Holes together which is beyond the visible spectrum of Humans sight or detection.
Multiverse Universes are logical and mathematically viable offering an alternative to the current Chaos theory that is all but dead except in the minds of Children. The Creation Theory is born out of Atomic and Subatomic particle certainty, Electrons and anti-electrons have protons and anti-protons which orbit in predictable paths that only allow Chemical Compounds to form if their order is certain. Quarks and anti-quarks orbit and spin allow Protons orbits in exact certainty creating 100% pure Chemical Compounds, their is no Chaos. Multiverses give Certainty to Creation, God is responsible for assembling matter and anti-matter that gives life to our Universe. Our Universe is Finite! not Infinite, it was Created and assembled.
Ronald Nussbeck
I do enjoy talk of parallel universes, inflation and figures like 13,7 billion years - with the standard scientific notation for decimal points that gives a varation of a "mere" 100 million years, give or take. No human, no matter how astute or wise, can begin to fathom 100 million years, let alone 13,7 billion. We continue, our race, to try to explain what we observe, and the Big Bang appears to have good charateristics as an explanation of how things became to be as they are. There is one small problem that I have put forth numerous times, but no one has answered yet. Perhaps it is Stanley Kubrick's classical question to Hal, the ship computer in Space Odessy 2001, that confuses us. Hear ye, Hear ye! The Big Bang, you say, but where did the baseball, or golfball or marble, or whatever it all started with, come from? Some have marvelled that it is a cyclical process, with gargantuan black holes consuming whole universes only to implode on themselves and Big Bang again, OK, but what started the first one? We get all caught up in our card houses that show how things look according to our current vision, but we fail to address where it all came from. God? Allah? Bhudda? I have no idea, and I challenge anyone who thinks they know better to a debate on the issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do enjoy talk of parallel universes, inflation and figures like 13,7 billion years - with the standard scientific notation for decimal points that gives a varation of a "mere" 100 million years, give or take. No human, no matter how astute or wise, can begin to fathom 100 million years, let alone 13,7 billion. We continue, our race, to try to explain what we observe, and the Big Bang appears to have good charateristics as an explanation of how things became to be as they are. There is one small problem that I have put forth numerous times, but no one has answered yet. Perhaps it is Stanley Kubrick's classical question to Hal, the ship computer in Space Odessy 2001, that confuses us. Hear ye, Hear ye! The Big Bang, you say, but where did the baseball, or golfball or marble, or whatever it all started with, come from? Some have marvelled that it is a cyclical process, with gargantuan black holes consuming whole universes only to implode on themselves and Big Bang again, OK, but what started the first one? We get all caught up in our card houses that show how things look according to our current vision, but we fail to address where it all came from. God? Allah? Bhudda? I have no idea, and I challenge anyone who thinks they know better to a debate on the issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe scientific discussion of whether or not a cosmic multitude, or multiverse, exists outside our own observable universe has nothing to do with whether you believe in no god or happen to be a polytheist who believes in many gods all having unique personalities. Gods are irrelevant to science unless your god can be described in sufficient detail so as to suggest a hypothesis of existence that can be tested. And that would be entirely beside the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the observable universe has, for the most part, probably gone unobserved. We can observe a sketch of what floats around a billion light-years distance or so, but we are just barely able to see some details today. Yet our expectations for the behavior of this unobserved matter will probably be more realistic if we stick to the physics that we know until nature revises our knowledge with new evidence.
Science entices the human mind into new places and a more precise understanding of reality. Few known things are more counter-intuitive than Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Intuition wants to believe that time is constant. It's not. Outside of measureable events, it may not have any existence at all. Einstein took Maxwell's equations describing electro-magnetism and derived the speed of light to be constant in a vacuum despite the velocities of source and observer. This blew Michelson and Morley away. They were striving to find the "ether" in which waves of light travelled and refused to believe their own measurements for quite some time. There is no ether for light. And the implications of Einstein's work rocked the world of physics to its core.
This beauty that takes our minds to new frontiers can only be seen in the equations that embody scientific theories. The equations that describe reality today have more than one non-trivial solution. That our universe satisfies only one solution of these equations suggests that there could be others. We have no idea what lies beyond the microwave background of the known universe. Logic suggests that if we were able to travel halfway to the boundary we see then we would see yet another at about the same distance. What if it's at a different distance there? What if the background pattern looks different? What if it doesn't change at all? Such findings would suggest a geometry that is not so easy to wrap our minds around. Wouldn't that be a lot more interesting than arguing and flogging simple-minded preconceptions?
What a lot of people are missing here is that pondering and solving these mysteries is what makes science so much fun.
no, I'm not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur universe is only special to us because we are in it. We evolved here so that is why all the constants seem favourable for our existence. If the constants were different, a different form of life might have evolved here. So we were a product of our universe's existence, not the other way around.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, it sometimes seems that things that humans dream up in science fiction, for example, suddenly appear in astrophysics, so perhaps we are thinking the universe into being one story at a time. I think that there are many more connections in this universe that we haven't discovered yet.
the aether? sorry, science has disposed on this nonsense concept nearly a century ago. not disproven it mind you, merely made irrelevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The article should NOT be equating creation science to childhood fairy tales."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. The article should have equated 'creation science' to Ptolemeic Astronomy, or the lunatic ravings of an insane mind. Creation science is only 'science' in the minds of people who are stupid. Not gullible, not easilly led, not conned by clever manipulators, but truly, honestly, irredeamably stupid.
Our Universe was Created and assembled and God is responsible for assembling everything?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you think so then this God made very beautiful things but very cruel, since in this world there are so many suffering creatures and it is an absolut dictator without democracy! Going on to talk about nonsense one can also think that all matters were created by very intelligent superior Parents to amuse their own Children! Every sort of religion is a form of very naive stubborn optimism made out only on wrong logic. If one day Science will find a physical and mathematical base for some Creator it will be very welcome!
Interesting... Merely the mention of gods apparently makes the hair of some scientists stand on end. Dwell on this for a moment: if we believe in the Big Bang (and belief it must rest on, for there is no way we can go 13,7 billion years back and take a peep at the baseball) and believe that our observations are reliable, then much is explained that otherwise would be murky. On the other hand, practical day to day science and its applications are happily non-connected to astrophysics. Indeed, one could argue with force that the whole field of astrophysics is a way for a very small number (as a proportion of the world's population) of individuals to while their time. It is quite possible that our observations, based on our beliefs, are wholly wrong - we have no way of knowing. The happy circumstance of this quandary is the it doesn't matter save to that small cohort of individuals to whom it means everything. Let us keep the arguments logical and cool - the question I put that lacks an answer is: where did the supercompressed mass that is supposed to precede the Big Bang come from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere did the supercompressed mass that is supposed to precede the Big Bang come from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee my comment n.13 and look at the movie Contact wit Jodie Foster based the Carl Sagan novel of the same name!
Well, I'm not a Scientist by training but I have observed some interesting things in Life and I find this Whole Discussion to be wonderful ! Happy Hunting !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a scientist, when anyone states an absolute such as "tiny subatomic speck of space" started the beginning of the universe, the question begs to be asked?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere did that 'tiny subatomic speck of space' originate? All this article does is speculate on hypothetical events without knowing the origin of anything.
Human beings rely on a 'finite' number of senses and ability to understand that which appears in the dark void of our craniums. It is fun to create hypothetical events but no one has explained where and why all this we think is reality.
What is all of these theories and hypothesis' have nothing to do with reality?
Where did the supercompressed mass that is supposed to precede the Big Bang come from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee my comment n.13 and look at the movie Contact wit Jodie Foster based on the Carl Sagan novel of the same name! It's possible that before the Beginning there was the End and after the End there will be the Beginning!
When questions are arising from physical and mathematical base, even if they are out of reality they can have real and not imaginary answers, like the imaginary numbers are not so imaginary after all!
The great minds of the World now know that our Universe was not created out of Chaos but Created with Certainty. Atomic and Subatomic particle seem like complexly assembled Compounds and Mater with opposite anti-mater particles, now it is becoming apparent they were Created to be assembled and disassembled allowing for Multiverses of which our Universe is just one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading some posts of Atheists who have anti-God beliefs it becomes clear they are promoting "Chaos" as their Theory of everything, shame on them, unable to contribute to Science's most relevant theory of Multiverse in an intellectual way.
CERN has broken open the Atom in a way that has lead to new understandings of subatomic particles and their function within the Atom.
Physicists have proven that Black Holes do not destroy or created information, energy but show they are reduced to wavelengths that vibrate after entering the Black Hole and on upon exit it is Postulated that they are then reassembled to their exact origin.
Black Holes have the capacity to collect matter, energy in quantity sufficient to produce a Universe at it's exit and cause inflation of a new Universe.
It is Theorized that Black Holes may link together both in the Parent Universe from time to time and their tails may also link funneling information and matter into the new Universe. It is gravity that pulls the tails of Black Holes together which is beyond the visible spectrum of Humans sight or detection.
Multiverse Universes are logical and mathematically viable offering an alternative to the current Chaos theory that is all but dead except in the minds of Children. The Creation Theory is born out of Atomic and Subatomic particle certainty, Electrons and anti-electrons have protons and anti-protons which orbit in predictable paths that only allow Chemical Compounds to form if their order is certain. Quarks and anti-quarks orbit and spin allow Protons orbits in exact certainty creating 100% pure Chemical Compounds, their is no Chaos. Multiverses give Certainty to Creation, God is responsible for assembling matter and anti-matter that gives life to our Universe. Our Universe is Finite! not Infinite, it was Created and assembled.
Ronald Nussbeck
Parallel universes are in the Nature (perhaps, but one con easily substitute the word Nature with God or Creator, it doesn't matter at all). In the Nature there are many good things and many bad things, and one can easily see them all just reading all these comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhysicists are just scared that if there are parallel universes that we have never ever glimpsed since the beginning of humanity, there is also room for consciousness existing beyond the body, but in a way that we have never ever glimpsed since the beginning of humanity, or have we?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the authors: if there were intelligent species in two parallel universes, is there any circumstance or configuration in which they might communicate with each other? If so, please speculate. If not, what is the absolute barrier? Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot in *my* universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTegmark says: "1) Omnivision assumption: physical reality must be such that at least one observer can in principle observe all of it. . . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the omnivision assumption is false, then there are unobservable things that exist and we live in a multiverse."
What kind of logic is this? Only if to be a scientist you have to have the answers to the questions do you make that assumption. A non-scientist who knows he isn't a god can easily assume that there is reality that is unobserved by anyone and still say it is because there is no other vision possible.
On the other hand, if there is in reality other than omnivision, that in no way makes multiverses a logical "therefore" conclusion. There could be reality that at least one entity has a capacity of observing all of it (or even no such observing-capable entity) and still have reality that does not include multiverses. True, lack of evidence is no evidence. But lack of empirical evidence together with the obvious lack of possible observing capability that being scientific requires, makes the multiverse hypothesis unscientific and purely a faith.
Tegmark says: "If the omnivision assumption is false, then there are unobservable things that exist and we live in a multiverse."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd those "unobservable things" could include God just a well as multiverses. If you are wrong about multiverses there are few if any consequences. just adjust your premises. But if you are wrong about God then there could be a lot of other as-yet-unobserved realities that constitute consequences. But as scientist you trust only the observable. That is the faith you live by so you aren't taking any chances. Multiverses OK because I am an observing-of-reality-capable entity. If you want to take that chance, go with it, but at least admit you are inconsistant in saying unobservable reality includes multiverses but not God.
If someone says to another "I have experienced God," that is like telling a blind man that the sky is blue. He doesn't have a concept of "blue". In the same way someone who hasn't had the experience can't say there is no blue. If ever anyone or a lot of people say they have had experience, they may all be wrong, but that there is some reality out there is more probable. No one has experienced multiverses without adopting unprovable premises.
I might of read this article but, stating a theory as fact in the first sentence and I'm done!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll Big Bang theories make the prior assumption that such a thing as a spacetime continuum exists independently of matter and energy. There is no evidence whatever that such things as space and time exist as independent entities. They are concepts derived from creation after the fact. Space is measured in arbitrary units as the distance between physical things or within physical boundaries. Time is measured by cyclic periods of physical motion. There are no universal yardsticks or clocks out there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeneral relativity is based on a smoothed out universe and Einstein repeatedly pointed out that singularities are inconsistent. Late in life he also doubted that physics could be based on the continuous field concept. The only option is a discontinuous universe where space and time are defined by the synchronous projection of atoms and the distance light can transmit relative to each atom in each synchronous projection. Google Unified Theories, Fantasy, and Cosmic Order.
Robert: "Space is measured . . ."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can you measure what isn't a "thing"? isn't real? When you say "physical boundaries" in the plural, isn't what's between as real as the boundaries? Aren't both the line constituting the boundary and what the line occupies equally real? And how can you conceive of "motion" without at lease two boundaries with real space between them? You don't see motion, you only see two boundaries in space and two boundaries marked in time. "Motion" is just a mental concept to define (put a boundary around) two real sets of boundaries.
With doppler shifts bounded things move relative to unchanging space and the distance between electromagnetic wave crests (which are boundaries) doesn't change as light moves through the unchanged space. With cosmic red shifts, bounded objects do not move relative to space, but the real space between them expands and the distance-length between the boundaries of the wave crests is a measure of the increase of real space between them.
There is no motion or expansion without time.
13. Ronnie 05:19 PM 7/19/11: "First, our Universe is finite in size, a parent Universe maybe of significantly larger size than that of the offspring but still finite."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat evidence do you have of the truth of this statement? To say "size" you have to be able to define boundaries, and to have some means to measure the space between the boundaries. Boundaries have two sides and you need a concept of what is inside and what is outside.
Because the only means we have of getting information about our universe is electromagnetic radiation and gravity, and the speed of both inside the boundaries is finite, it is impossible for any information from a boundary to ever reach us. Light that started out in our direction one light-year farther from us than the CMBR, won't get to this part of the universe for millions of years. We know because the CMBR (which is the history only after the first thousand years of that part of the universe)- a thousand year period, is stretched by red shift into 13 billion. To get CMBR from a part of the universe that started out one light-year farther away could take another 13 billion years to get here, if it does at all.
So is the universe finite? God only knows, and even He only if He is outside the boundary. Even if we found some other means to get information, how would we know it was from a boundary?
Hi Olman21,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you should read my post more carefully. I said that space and time are derived from creation after the fact. In the absence of physical things with specific boundaries space and time are as illusive as a ghost. They are not a priori realties as general relativity and big bang cosmology assumes.
In a discontinuous universe in which atoms are independently and synchronously projected space is defined relative to each atom by the universal transmission of EM radiation which is ubiquitous and originates from atomic processes. Where there is no light there is a black hole. Plancks constant is a universal quantum of action which says that light transmits in quantum pulses. Light is discontinuous across the entire breadth of the spectrum. This indicates that atoms themselves are discontinuous. They oscillate between three dimensional physical forms and their timeless and formless quantum energy equivalents consistent with E=mc2. One oscillation defines one primary interval of time, so that atoms are particles and waves at the same time. Light speed is universal with respect to each atom. However high relative motions introduce non synchronous frame skipping and red shifts.
Google the article Unified Theories, Fantasy and Cosmic Order. There is also an article there on Gravity, Quantum Relativity and System 3. They take some careful reflection to digest.
Best regards
Hi Olman21,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you should read my post more carefully. I said that space and time are derived from creation after the fact. In the absence of physical things with specific boundaries space and time are as illusive as a ghost. They are not a priori realties as general relativity and big bang cosmology assumes.
In a discontinuous universe in which atoms are independently and synchronously projected space is defined relative to each atom by the universal transmission of EM radiation which is ubiquitous and originates from atomic processes. Where there is no light there is a black hole. Plancks constant is a universal quantum of action which says that light transmits in quantum pulses. Light is discontinuous across the entire breadth of the spectrum. This indicates that atoms themselves are discontinuous. They oscillate between three dimensional physical forms and their timeless and formless quantum energy equivalents consistent with E=mc2. One oscillation defines one primary interval of time, so that atoms are particles and waves at the same time. Light speed is universal with respect to each atom. However high relative motions introduce non synchronous frame skipping and red shifts.
Google the article Unified Theories, Fantasy and Cosmic Order. There is also an article there on Gravity, Quantum Relativity and System 3. They take some careful reflection to digest.
Best regards
"intelligent observers exist only in those rare bubbles in which, by pure chance, the constants happen to be just right for life to evolve."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's just correct this statement to... "there is only ONE known planet in ONE known Universe where the conditions were conducive to the evolution of life, the remainder of the Universe, as far as we currently know, is barren and devoid of life".
Anything else is nothing more than hyperbole.
Alexander Vilenkin states: "Each bubble type has a certain probability to form in the inflating space. So inevitably, an unlimited number of bubbles of all possible types will be formed in the course of eternal inflation." One can't argue with that, as long as there are an unlimited number of bubbles formed. What if only one bubble was ever formed? It seems that the multiverse and eternal inflation are expressions of the same speculative, and clearly seductive, concept. I'm with George Ellis. It seems a lot of physicists these days are being drawn into the realm of metaphysics. This is understandable, but someone should give them a shake and tell them to get back to work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe idea that the world is created by "a creator" implies the existence multiple universes. At least two. The domain in which the creator exists and the created universe. But it solves nothing because you would need to include "the creator" and the domain it exists in, in your theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTegmark says: "We humans have a well-documented tendency toward hubris, arrogantly imagining ourselves at center stage". Isn't the idea that the universe is fine tuned for us exactly putting humans at the centre stage again? Isn't that the saying that humans are the very reason that the universe looks like it does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI personally like the idea of multiverses because it reflects the reality I see. And I mention the following examples: There isn't only one cell, there are many. There isn't only one rock, there are many. There isn't only one particle, or planet or moon or star. There are nuclei with clouds of particles around them, these particles clump together, matter clumps into gases and dust which becomes (eventually) in some cases rocks. Rocks can become moons, which rotate around planets, planets around stars(for the most part), stars around a central area of a galaxy. Galaxies clump together into large groups. So why would there be only one universe? And I like the bubble (perhaps more disklike, rather than ball-like??) concept, because it reminds me of the behavior of cells clumped together.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think flat universes that that bang on each other like cymbals much more far-fetched. Plus then you have to evoke all these extra dimensions. Plus, the truth, I have always thought that coincidentally, the pictures of great structures of the univese remind me the endoplasmic reticulum of living cells. Another similar pattern, just like hurricanes look like swirling galaxies.
But in the end, does it really matter? It is all very interesting, but if we cannot curb population growth, give equal treatment to all, make sure all people have minimum needs met, all creatures share our Gaia, and Human ape groups continue trying to protect invented territorial lines and destroy "enemies", then, in the near future, there will be one less group of observers in this Universe of ours.
No, but then we might be in parallel universes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a beginning and an end to everything. You will draw your last breath, say your last word, eat your last pizza, have your last thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sun will burn its last bit of hydrogen someday, etc.
So far we, as a species, have believed in an Universe created by the entity so called god, an entity whose existence by NO means has a proof, however, it is it no matter what.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince there is NO chance of to get an irrefutable evidence that an entity as such could ever exists, we are in the situation that we can speculate about how would be the place we call The Universe, and theoretically test it if we develop a Scientific theory.
We have already developed a good model of the nature of our universe and how it has evolved, so far, after a beginning and even though we can pronostic an end. If it has an end we have no other option that assert that there are more entities, objects like it and so that, then, the whole space is infinite and no matter what eternal, and that there are an infinite number of objects, some how like our universe, although not necessarily the same.
Said that we can purposefully look for scientifically developed theories about a model of such an Universe but we can't say that doing so is as absurd as is the belief in a god.
An external gravitational pull from afar in a given sector of the boundaries of our universe could be a sure bet that beyond it there is another universe, like ours, pulling, feeding, from our meat. Perhaps the radial acceleration Hubble found is something like that. It could even be that there are more than one pull and so more than one predator is tearing apart us.
Fundamentally, we should theorize that out there there is a similar behavior as there is inside, at all levels.
So far we, as a species, have believed in an Universe created by the entity so called god, an entity whose existence by NO means has a proof, however, it is it no matter what.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince there is NO chance of to get an irrefutable evidence that an entity as such could ever exists, we are in the situation that we can speculate about how would be the place we call The Universe, and theoretically test it if we develop a Scientific theory.
We have already developed a good model of the nature of our universe and how it has evolved, so far, after a beginning and even though we can pronostic an end. If it has an end we have no other option that assert that there are more entities, objects like it and so that, then, the whole space is infinite and no matter what eternal, and that there are an infinite number of objects, some how like our universe, although not necessarily the same.
Said that we can purposefully look for scientifically developed theories about a model of such an Universe but we can't say that doing so is as absurd as is the belief in a god.
An external gravitational pull from afar in a given sector of the boundaries of our universe could be a sure bet that beyond it there is another universe, like ours, pulling, feeding, from our meat. Perhaps the radial acceleration Hubble found is something like that. It could even be that there are more than one pull and so more than one predator is tearing apart us.
Fundamentally, we should theorize that out there there is a similar behavior as there is inside, at all levels.
In response to yaguei the last person who commented who said, "So far we, as a species, have believed in an Universe created by the entity so called god, an entity whose existence by NO means has a proof, however, it is it no matter what." I would agree to a point that Science does not in fact prove God's existence. But neither does it disprove God's existence. So I would like to propose God as a Theory instead. Scientific Theories are not in fact provable. They are considered to be most likely true based off of Scientific evidence. I propose God as a Theory because there is in fact Scientific evidence that leads me to the conclusion that it is more reasonable to believe that God exists. The first argument is of course, the Big Bang theory. The Big Bang theory states that Something came from Nothing. So the Universe or even the Multiverse as thesce guys claim is true had a beginning. In Philosophy there is an argument for the existence of God. It is known as the Cosmological Argument.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Cosmological Argument in logical form goes like this: 1. Everything that had a beginning had a cause. 2. The universe had a beginning. 3. Therefore the universe had a Cause.
It doesn't matter if the Multiverse is true or not. It does not escape this premise for it has a beginning. Now I believe that God is the The First Cause. People have asked mistakenly have asked "Who Caused God?" God does not in fit the first premise of the argument for God by definition is eternal and therefore does not need a beginning. So God is the First Cause.
There is another argument for the existence of God, and it is called the Teological Argument. The Teological Argument goes like this: 1. Every design had a designer. 2. The Universe has highly complex design. 3. Therefore, the universe has had a Designer.
Think for a moment of a building, you know that there is intuitively that that building had someone build it. Why not the universe, it is very complex and has a lot of design in it. Just consider the cell and all the functions it carries out.
So just by these two arguments, I believe the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the existence of God, is more reasonable than any other idea out there. Now we all look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions and yes it is true that I can't prove it 100% but then again you can't prove any other scientific theories for that matter anyways. But that is why we demonstrate this thing called faith. I don't have enough faith to claim that there is no God whatsoever. Atheists have way more faith than I.
I have a new scientific theory: "anything that can happen will happen", and we happen to reside in one of an infinite number of possible bubbles in which I am (or am not) writing this sentence. "For a theory to be falsifiable, we need not be able to observe and test all its predictions, merely at least one of them", so I take my prediction and observation of our universe's existence as a test of my theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy scientific theory is the best possible explanation of our universe. The fact our universe happens to behave in a particular way is irrelevant: it is an inevitable consequence of my scientific theory.
“I would bet that at the turn of the 22nd century philosophers and physicists will look nostalgically at the present and recall a golden age in which the narrow provincial 20th century concept of the universe gave way to a bigger better [multiverse] ... of mind-boggling proportions.”...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would bet that by the turn of the 23rd century the philosophers and physicists will look scornfully back on the physicists of the 22nd century for letting postmodernism infect their minds to the extent that they supported a multiverse. I could also imagine that they will laugh at people who don't believe in witches.
We all love imagining that the future will vindicate us as we daydream in the shower wasting hot water. To be so vain, however, as to say it out loud is usually an attempt to frighten people by telling them that they will miss the spaceship 'Future' and will consequently be mocked by their descendants who make a detailed study of their life. Have you made a detailed study of your ancestors?
Hey Richard, Why don't we call this new science the physics of unobservable/unmeasurable entities?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI prefer to call it meta-... hey wait; are you trying to trick me out of a job Julian?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the multiverse exist but is diferent. We see one litle piece on earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the universe grow ever time certainly exist others universe inside the universe!
Iknow this is speculation but i hope one day have mora scientifics facts that prove this.
Multiverse? No way! How many years aheado to begin the search for MultiverseS? May be we have wasting time believing that our local place could be The entire universe, instead?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank God the experts are starting to take the concept seriously and people in the scientific community don't have to fear losing their jobs over it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisD J Wray - Theory of Complex Evolution
Sorry, but is you dont accept multiverses, each of them running their own version of times (past present and future). your proposal will not be sound Multiverseswide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHERE'S THE PROBLEM...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is this even being proposed? Think...
Because of the insurmountable odds of Atom cohesion, something from nothing, life, you name it.
So before you jump onboard understand the motivation. A Catholic Priest in charge of physics came up with the Big Bang. Why?..because the bias was so strong against a beginning cosmologists didnt used their reasoning..they used their bias to lead them.
The multiverse is the manifestation of a bias, so against a Creator, it doesnt see how utterly absurd it is.
When Physicists decided to become priests of the universe they truly crossed the line.
Any Philosopher would laugh at this. It takes all of 2 seconds to see all the ludicrous absurdities that come along with infinite universes.
Not only does it lead to universes where a thousands suns line up in the sky to spell "this is the awesome multiverse created to avoid God" but it leads to Hitler in a dress playing the kazoo as he declares war on the world.
These so called authors of Reason are completely out of their field of expertise.
Much smarter people, who are actually good at this kind of conceptualizing, have already pronounced this as the height of lunacy. Yet these infants of philosophical thinking are playing in a sandbox compared to the real thinkers of history.
Its like a bunch of kids building a hack tree fort, thinking they invented the dawn of engineering, as master engineers stand by saying, "ahhhh nerds, nice try but we already go this covered"
I will give them this: They denied the obvious for so long, completely disregarded the odds--denying in the strongest terms what every human being can see in a split second--forgoing all logic and reason, claiming their very consciousness just assembled itself.
But after all this time, most of them finally admit there is no way this single universe could ever design itself.
By proposing the absurd multiverse they have finally admitted what everyone already knew. They will say they dont admit it..but as soon as they said there are infinite universes where everything happens---they essentially said Bias defines their reasoning. Any answer other than God, no matter how laughable, is better than the simplest explanation.
The data leads to a designer. The data leads to unmoved mover. The data leads to Prime mover. Philosophers have said this thousand of years ago.
Augustine said Time and space were created--scientist disagreed until recently.
A Christian said the universe started at the Big Bang..science laughed until Hubble proved it.
With the multiverse...?
I agree. Remove the arrogant nuture of the human condition and you have eternity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think these defenses of multiverses went from bad to worse. I'm too tired to parse everything I found wrong (never mind typos, such as "mater"), so I'll just summarize my main points.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe popularity of multiverses is based on the idea that every possible event happens in one or another 'verse. By event, people think of macroscopic events, such as our observable, daily lives. A justification for multiverses based on quantum theory is that multiple quantum states are simultaneously possible; the conjecture is that each of them exists in its own universe. However, quantum theory is speaking of quantum states, not macroscopic events. The two are not related, and there is no justification for supposing our doppelgangers exist in any other 'verse, even if multiverses exist. Same goes for string theory.
Although all the constants must be tuned for life as we know it to exist, if every possible reality were realized, one should expect 'verses more and less hospitable to life. Are the properties of our Universe optimal? That seems unlikely even in the multiverse.
The Omnivision assumption sounds a lot like the statement that the universe behaves the same everywhere. If this assumption is not true, then we know nothing, and cannot know anything, about our Universe.
If a Creationist were to state that the Big Bang is an explosion, he would be roasted on this and other forums. So, I would appreciate it if Vilenkin wouldn't begin his apology by stating, "The universe as we know it originated in a great explosion that we call the big bang."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVilenkin states - "At the end of inflation, the energy that drove the expansion ignites a hot fireball of particles and radiation. This is what we call the big bang."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this statement correct? Did inflation occur BEFORE the big bang? I believe that I have always read it being the other way around.
this concept is real great in sifi books and movies but in nature is shows a redundance that would require knowledge to exist , so either god studdered or this theory is quaint .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe big bang is based on the idea that a singulary appeared , then exploded and in the ensuing chaos order was achieved , and from this order multiverse disorder once again found its place . does this assume that the laws of physics are uniform or was there more singularies and did they explode like a string of firecrackers forming eaches own vortex . this would ofcourse really put off those who wished to be everywhere . any multiverse factor would of necessity be different energy levels with their componant physics , why have this unless there was one dominant energy level and each other were responding to its energy effects . we can not enter into these other verses until we can duplicate there resonant energies which we have yet to dicern. i ll have a scotch and water . thanks .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead --WRONG JUDGEMENT BY NEWTON and balloon inside balloon theory of matter and antimatter universe on opposite entropy path producing dark energy and injected into our universe in non uniform ,non isotropic form causing a swirl and whirl of dark energy soup so that galaxies and stars rotate . Now this dark energy is adding more and more space into our universe causing expansion may be accelerated even but as the dark energy is consisting five god particles,--four for four forces and one for mass creation , therefore the strength of gravitoethertons soup is tuning the universal constants and universal constants are varying and by good luck our zone solar system is tuned and we have life here. As NEWTONS EQUATION will now be F=P.G.M.m/R.R where P is factor of permeability,thus dark matter calculation may be done again and it may not be so high as presently suggested by ordinary NEWTONS GRAVITY and not MOND.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about creating parallel universes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis site is offering $50 to the first person that can identify a contradiction between their model and observable physics.
qesdunn.pbwiki.com
Assume for a moment that there are other universes just like
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisours, no reminted physics, just what we know here. Given that,
would they not have mass, a lot of mass. If so, would not the
forces of gravity apply so that the mass of those universes would
create a pull, a force on the mass in our universe? If that were
so, could that explain why our universe is and always has been
expanding outward? Such a construct seems much more plausible
than the many complex and yet to be proven theories we are exploring.
Isn't it an axiom in physics to go for the simplier explanation?
Not being a scientist, I cannot justify another
hunch but, could it be that mass from many universes could be
gathered by an attracting force, the way a black hole attracts
matter with gamma rays, as I understand it, so that when sufficient
matter from many universes is gathered and compacted, we see
a big bang to create a new universe. Do we have any information
or theories on if and how matter can leave this universe?
Every dynamic system has
a mechanism for recreating itself; this could be the way universes
are created.
So, I stuck my chin out; start swinging.
Does this mean there can be identical snowflakes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Im not wrong.....(its very possible that I am) I believe that space or the edge of space that is expanding away from us is actually moving faster then the speed of light (its not breaking any speeding laws because space is moving not what's contained in it) So we will never be able to see the actual edge of space. Of course if you believe that space is curved you really could never see the edge anyways. Hum I may have just fell off the edge of the topic LOL.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave a great day.