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Ep. 166: Multiverses
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Play Podcast Astronomy Cast on
December 16th, 2009 |
12 responses |
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in Cosmology
in Cosmology
Deep field image by Hubble
What if our universe was just one in an infinite number of parallel universes; a possible outcome from the specific predictions of quantum mechanics. The idea of multiple universes is common in science fiction, but is there any actual science to back this theory up?
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Shownotes
- Multiverses – AstroScience
- If We Live in a Mulitverse, How Many are There? — Universe Today
- Does the Multiverse Provide a Theory of Everything? – Suite 101
- Video with Dr. Michio Kaku on the Multiverse
- Parallel Universe — Universe Today
- Thinking About Time Before the Big Bang — Universe Today
- Videos on String Theory and Multiple Universes with physicists Brian Cox and Leonard Suskind
- Anthropic Principle — Wiki
- String Theory -- The Official String Theory Website
- M-Theory — Wiki
- M-Theory — Caltech
- P-Brane — Solar Physics
- D-Brane – Caltech
- M-Theory and the Multiverse – Discussion on Physics Forums
- Multiverse Explorations — Discussion on the BAUT Forum
- Visual Quantum Mechanics (intro to quantum physics) — KSU
- Quantum Mechanics – Wiki
- Quantum Foam – Astronomy Cafe
- Webmage books by Kelly McCullough
Transcript
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YAY! New shows!!! Thank you two, once again, for such a great show!! I cant wait for each episode and then the conversations I have with my Wife and two small kids about what I just learned.
Many wishes for happiness and a great holiday season… and another wonderful year!
Take care!
ahhh. yes! you guys are back! and what better way then 4 episodes this week. keep them coming
wish you happy snow days and another year of awesomecast.
Questions, questions. Regarding the splitting universe hypothesis. Let's say there are two neutrons that are not part of a nucleus. At sometime they will decay. One neutron decays and the universe splits, making a second universe. Then the second neutron decays and there is a third universe. I presume I understand so far. My questions are these, if the experiment is performed again, can their decay occur closely enough in time so that only one new universe is created? And how would relativity affect the outcome from the point of view of an observer? If in the second experiment only one new universe can be created, would this be evidence for quantum time?
Thanks.
If one can't observe, test, verify, recreate or otherwise apply scientific method to multiple universes, then the study of multiverses is as scientific as numerology.
This was a difficult subject well covered. Keep up the good work.
Yay!
Some new shows for Christmas – thank you so much!
Personally I think 'Multiverses' are a total load of hogwash, but never mind. What it boils down to is that nothing we do makes any difference at all because everything 'in some dimension or other' is being done.
This means that the whole of Creating averages out to one big nothing. Everyone in some dimension or other has been President of the USA etc… hogwash!
Mathematically it's useful to help explain the multiple 'folded' dimensions, but as far as actual science goes there's absolutely no possible proof of this at all – it's simple a guess.
The Multiverse hypothesis is as scientific as the Easter Bunny.
Still I always love your shows so thank you for that.
Happy Christmas!
the video on string theory you posted, with Brian Cox and Leonard Suskind, felt really condescending. Maybe I'm sensitive.
And now the Wikipedia article on Uranus is semi-protected! Any connection?
(I added a Wikipedia link to Astronomy Cast once. Long time ago now, but I put in the reference to episode 85 in the "Red Alert" article.)
Checking, I see that the reference in Wikipedia's Uranus article was originally added on 20 April 2009, so you're clear.
(From the podcast I got the impression it was a recent edit.)
I think our universe is one of the appendages of the flying spaghetti monster. Unfortunately the different appendages can't interact, so this can't be proven scientifically. But trust me. Its true.
What if there are exactly two sectors of the universe of universes, instead of infinitely many – with the other sector predominantly made up of matter of the "anti" or "inverse" type? We observe anti-particles, though they are comparatively infrequent, so the suggestion has at least some realistic foundation. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a similar tie-in to reality for the "multiverse" theories.
Regarding the pronunciation of Uranus. Sorry, but it's wrong. How do you pronounce "Uranium or Ouranos?" There is an A in there for crying out loud, not an I! And is it better to be saying urine-us than your-anus? And that's only for English speaking people anyway. Maybe a short a as in "Ur-an-us" would have been a good compromise. But NOT Urinis, and that's how you two are saying it.
The now common mispronunciation started back in 1986 when the Voyager 2 was in the news, so newscasters didn't have a hard time. But newscasters are notorious for mispronouncing words, such as pronouncing the silent L in words like "palm".
I can see TV catering to the lowest common denominator, but when science has to follow suit, well that's just sad.
As far as the show, not bad, but if you are going to try and dodge the whole where did the universe come from in the first place, it's going to cramp your style trying to figure out how and why there might by more than one. And I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about all we don't know, which is far greater than what we do know. We can't just assume the laws of physics would be different in another universe … that's based on our current understanding of reality, which is pretty minimal.
Wow David, I really think that the pronuciation of Uranus matters. People still get the point.