One universe or many? Panel holds unusual debate

World Science ^ | March 30,. 2006

[snarks_when_bored]

I would've enjoyed hearing these distinguished panelists go at it...

A couple of references:

Oldest light shows universe grew fast, researchers say [inflationary cosmology gets a big boost]

Andrei Linde, "The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe" [PDF file]

As for the obligatory Lisa Randall pics, I trust they'll be forthcoming...

[snarks_when_bored]

Yes, it's a ping...

[muawiyah]

Interesting that the latest theories keep tending toward the idea that what we see, isolated galaxies, linked by gravity in long chains, could very well be independent universes, and these could be interspersed with universes we can't see ~ black matter/black energy, and all of that encapsulated in a macro-universe that holds all of 'em.

Or something even worse than that ~ I am reminded of this old SciFi story where the folks discovered they were trapped in one of Philip Farmer's "Pocket Universes", and their space ships just bounced off the boundaries somewhere toward Pluto's orbit.

[SteveMcKing]

I like how bigger and bigger terms keep being invented to describe the same thing...

cosmos
universe
multiverse
theory-of-everything

(Others?)

[muawiyah]

"42"

[martin_fierro]

Gotta wonder what the anti-Marty would be like.

Rich, probably.

[snarks_when_bored]

Interesting that the latest theories keep tending toward the idea that what we see, isolated galaxies, linked by gravity in long chains, could very well be independent universes, and these could be interspersed with universes we can't see ~ black matter/black energy, and all of that encapsulated in a macro-universe that holds all of 'em.

I have to disagree with you on that. The universes of which Linde and Kaku are speaking are not visible to us, nor are they composed of dark matter contained in the visible portion of our universe. They're speaking of completely separate universes lying outside the inflationary bubble that we inhabit.

BTW, I didn't know about Farmer's 'pocket universes' stories. Alan Guth, one of the co-discoverers of inflationary cosmology, speaks of 'pocket universes' when describing separate cosmic bubbles.

[siunevada]

I would've enjoyed hearing these distinguished panelists go at it...

an actual, politician-style duel

Perhaps they can bring in some South Korean legislators to show them how these things should be done.

[PatrickHenry]

SciencePing

An elite subset of the Evolution list. See the list's explanation at my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

[snarks_when_bored]

(chuckle) Democracy as fisticuffs...

[RichInOC]

"...Okay. That means that...our whole solar system...could be, like...one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being....This is too much! That means...one tiny atom in my fingernail could be..."
"Could be one little..."
"...tiny universe...Could l buy some pot from you?"

[Tench_Coxe]

I heard a version of this theory roughly 20 years ago.
I had pondered for a brief time, that if one could model spacetime, and know within a certain degree of certaintity the budding universe was deviating, one might be able to model what conditions in such a universe would evolve into--and, perhaps, find a way to link to it.
It was just a mental experiment at the time, but it did give me a few sleepless nights. :)

[muawiyah]

We know how far we can see, but that's not the same as the boundary of all the inflationary space there could be.

BTW, when cosmologists refer to "pocket universes" they are usually familiar with Philip Farmer's use of the term ~ all interesting stories ~ I'm not exactly sure who Farmer got his science from, but he knew how to spin a yarn.

Take another look at Billy Pilgrim, the character in several of Kurt Vonnegut's stories. Recall, quickly, that for a long time Kurt and Phil were big buddies ~ until Phil wrote a story for Billy himself.

There you discover a theory of "time" that suggests multi-dimensionality for time in pretty much the same manner as Farmer's pocket universes are expanded out from the point of origin.

As I was saying, and you might not have picked up on it, the current most speculative theories of the Universe's structure are getting closer to some ideas worked out in literature in the 1960s and 1970s by two Indiana writers.

If you haven't read Farmer's stories, here's your chance for some provocative thought.

[muawiyah]

In reality, we have in this picture Gene Roddenberry's mistress making goo-goo eyes with a gay guy.

Definitely some science fiction going on!

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

The idea of a multiverse is not new. Hugh Everett did his dissertation on the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1957. As I understood it, his idea was that all possible quantum states are expressed.

[furball4paws]

OK OK OK RichInOC hears a Who.

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

I guess if I had read a bit further in the article I would have seen in print what I attempted to point out.:-)

[balrog666]

Scientists might one day create a “baby universe” in a laboratory by recreating such conditions, Kaku said. This would involve resurrecting the unimaginably high temperatures of the early universe. A spacetime foam can be recreated by literally “boiling space,” he said, adding that a sort of advanced microwave oven could do the trick.

Would the bozos of that universe worship us a gods? Would they fight Holy Wars over balrog666 vs snarks_when_bored?

What delicious possibilities!

[AntiGuv]

Very cool stuff! BTW, Michio Kaku has posted some very interesting essays on string theory and multiverses here: mkaku.org.

I especially enjoyed these two: Blackholes, Wormholes and the Tenth Dimension and Hyperspace and a Theory of Everything.

[snarks_when_bored]

We know how far we can see, but that's not the same as the boundary of all the inflationary space there could be.

Correct. Check out Linde's article (referenced in post #1). There he mentions that some inflation theories suggest that the radius of our cosmic bubble could be as large as 10^{1,000,000,000,000} centimeters—that's a 1 followed by a trillion zeros. By contrast, the part of our universe that we can currently see has a radius which is only about 10²⁶ centimeters, exceedingly miniscule by comparison.