Posted on 11/29/2006 4:19:47 PM PST by LibWhacker
Is this a joke? No, say a bunch of physicists. One day, it may be possible for a person to create a universe!
This is not going to happen tomorrow. Not even close. But according to Columbia University physics professor Brian Greene, it is theoretically not impossible (which is his way of saying the possibilities are not zero) that one day, a person could build a universe.
The very idea is so startling it's hard to know what this means.
Think about it this way: One day (far off, no doubt), it may be possible to go into a laboratory on Earth, create a "seed" -- a device that could grow into a universe -- and then there would have to be a way to get that seed, on command, to safely expand into a separate, infinite, unexplorable but very real alternate universe.
Got that?
This isn't Greene's notion. But he was willing to describe, in very broad outline, how it might work.
The seed, he suggests, could be a black hole. Not the big black holes that sit near the centers of so many galaxies, but what he calls a "mini black hole." Black holes, he says, don't have to be big. They can, in theory, be very small.
I asked him how small, and together we conducted an imaginary (very imaginary) experiment. If you listen to my interview, you will hear us build a mini black hole from an ordinary watermelon.
It's a fanciful experiment done with imaginary sound effects, but it playfully suggests these mini black holes might be manufactured one day. There may even be a real-life attempt. Plans are afoot to detect mini black holes at the new Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
Greene also describes a kind of energy, called a "repulsive force," that might be capable of turning that seed into a new universe. The problem is, no one is yet sure how this force works or why. But Eduardo Guendelman, a physicist at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel, and Nobuyuki Sakai and his team at Yamagata University in Japan are working on the problem right now.
But suppose it is possible to create something that grows infinitely and becomes a universe somewhere else, why do it if you can't go and visit your creation? If you can't pop in, take a look and come back, why bother?
In the July 8, 2006 issue, New Scientist writer Zeeya Merali put that question to Stanford cosmologist Andre Linde.
"I sat down and really thought about why we should even care about creating a universe in the laboratory, " he told New Scientist, "We don't seem to be able to communicate with it at all."
Once it's formed, the inventor couldn't meet its inhabitants, mine its minerals, collect souvenirs or judge his or her success. The biblical god who many believe created our universe inspected us on the first through sixth day and decided that what He'd done "was good."
That's not an option for the human scientist who creates.
So why do it? Well, Greene says given the chance to make a universe of his own, "I might have a little trouble resisting this possibility. Just because it's so curious, this idea that because of your volitional act, you are creating a universe that could give rise, perhaps, to things we see around us."
Linde seconded that in his New Scientist interview.
"Just imagine if it's true and there's even a small chance it really could work," he said. "In this perspective, each of us can become a god."
Oh, the vanity of it all!
Professor Hubert Farnsworth has already done it.
Don't liberals already live in their own universe?
Mr. Grene, what color is the sky in your universe?
Boy, this is gonna send real estate prices tumbling.
Ok. This just begs the question...
Intelligent design?
The "shock value" of this idea relies on misusing the term "universe." By definition, there is only one universe. To speak of "multiple universes" necessarily involves a new, different meaning of "universe."
Of course, the same fate befell the term "world."
My prediction: This new meaning of "universe" will eventually come to be accepted as its canonical meaning, and some new term will have to be adopted with the same meaning as the term "universe" had originally.
I thought the US treasury was a black hole.
Seems so. Except in this scenario, the creator could be far from all-knowing.
I don't know about you but, I haven't finished exploring the universe we have now to even consider building another one.
isn't San Francisco in an alternate universe?
You're right, it does open one hell of a can of worms. The metaphysics of it all is mind-boggling. Philosophers' heads are probably exploding as they read this.
I do understand the basic concepts reported in the article, and so it being a serious theory, I hesitate launching one of my lighter blurbs...but, do you suppose that our current universe is the result of some sharp teen-ager playing around in a higher universe with a school homework lab?
Yes there are liberal outposts of the liberal universe. A universe in which diversity is celebrated, tolerance is the only virtue, and all types of sexual expression are considered normal.
This guy needs to lay off the acid.
I wonder what the ideal liberal universe would be like. It would be full of idealistic people who celebrate diversity and be full of people who don't work for a living, so they have time to dream about the utopia they hope to create. Everyone would have equal access to universal healthcare, though few would be working to pay for it, because most can't work because they need time to dream about the utopia they want.
Every now and again, I imagine some alien civilization out there gets snuffed out by a physics experiment gone wrong.
What followed the start of the first universe?
A monstrous fireball that inflated about 100 million light years in a few hours.
Create that universe and you snuff out every living thing and every star within 100 million light years (which would be thousands of galaxies.)
smelloscope bump...
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity saith the PREACHER. Men thinking of themselves as gods, just like satan...
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