Last year seems as if we have already fallen into a parallel universe but Trump and Brexit are nothing matched to the alternate universes many astronomers are considering.
Cosmologists call it the multiverse. It’s a space or cosmos in which there are multiple universes. And by multiple, I mean countless number. These infinite realms sit side by side in advanced dimensions that our minds are unqualified of perceiving directly.
Yet gradually astronomers seem to be using the multiverse to enlighten mystifying observations.
It sounds crazy but the most recent piece of proof that could favor a multiverse comes from the United Kingdom’s Royal Astronomical Society. They published a research on the so-called ‘cold spot’. This is a mostly cool area of space seen in the radiation formed by the formation of the Universe more than Thirteen billion years ago.
The ‘cold spot’ was first seen by NASA’s WMAP satellite in 2004, and then confirmed by European Space Agency’s Planck mission in 2013. It is extremely puzzling. Most cosmologists believe that it is extremely doubtful to have been formed by the birth of the universe as it is mathematically tough for the foremost theory – which is known as inflation – to explain.
This most recent study claims to exclude a last-ditch prosaic detail:
That the cold spot is an optical deception produced by the absence of dominant galaxies.
The spiral galaxy M101 is pictured in this undated handout photo from NASA's
That the cold spot is an optical deception produced by the absence of dominant galaxies.
One of the study’s scientist, Professor Tom Shanks of Durham University (DU), told the RAS, “We can’t completely say that the Spot is caused by a doubtful fluctuation explained by the standard theory of the Big Bang (BB). But if that is not the accurate answer, then there are more interesting explanations. Possibly the most exciting of these is that the ‘Cold Spot’ (CS) was produced by an impact between our universe and another bubble universe. If further, more detailed, study … shows this to be the situation then the Cold Spot might be considered as the first proof for the multiverse.”
Strong stuff. But the insincerity is that if there is a multiverse, researchers will have to admit that the ultimate goal of physics (to describe why our universe is the way it is) could be forever out of reach from mankind.
If there exist a multiverse, however, that search could be doomed to disappointment.
Just as there are an infinite number of similar yet faintly different universes, like the one in which you have written this article not me, there will also be countless number in which the simple laws of physics are different.
So, every imaginable combination of physics is tried out through the multiverse. Certainly then, by nothing more than blind luck, at least one will have the circumstances we see everywhere us today. It’s just a big old calamity, and that barely seems very satisfying.
One of the most spoken enemies of the multiverse theory is, ironically, one of its new architects.
Paul Steinhardt, Princeton University, help out developing inflation, the theory of the foundation and origin of our universe. It’s the one that fights to explain the Cold Spot’, whereas also giving rise to the multiverse because as maths says once a universe begins to form it activates more to be born ad infinitum.
Paul Steinhardt, Princeton University, help out developing inflation, the theory of the foundation and origin of our universe. It’s the one that fights to explain the Cold Spot’, whereas also giving rise to the multiverse because as maths says once a universe begins to form it activates more to be born ad infinitum.
But, Steinhardt turned against his own concept.
In 2014, he said to Scientific American magazine, “Our visible universe would be just one chance out of endless spectrum of results. So, we haven’t explained any pieces of the universe by introducing inflation theory after all. We have just lifted the problem of the unique big bang model, how can we enlighten our simple universe when there is approximately infinite range of possibilities that could occur from the big bang?, to the inflationary idea (how can we explain our humble universe when there is approximately countless variety of possibilities that could occur in a multiverse?).”
Put it this way, a multiverse doesn’t appear attractive. It would cut to the very heart of physical science purpose. Nature also doesn’t care about this. Perhaps the cosmos actually is this way and we just have to admit it. Surely, there are many who are prepared to defend the multiverse as an effective direction for thought.
Encouragingly, if we do exist in a multiverse, we can be certain that somewhere out there is a different version of you and me that have also figured all this out (and won a Nobel Prize for the struggle).