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The multiverse theory suggests that our universe, with its hundreds of billions of galaxies and nearly countless stars, spanning tens of billions of light years, may not be alone. Instead, there may be an entirely different universe, distant from ours – and another, and another. Indeed, there can be an infinity of universes, all with their own physical laws, their own collections of stars and galaxies (if stars and galaxies can exist in these universes), and maybe even their own. intelligent civilizations.
It could be that our universe is just one member of a multitude of much larger and much larger universes: a multiverse.
Related: 10 crazy theories about the universe
Theoretical proof of the multiverse
The concept of multiverse appears in a few areas of physics (and philosophy), but the most prominent example comes from what is called the theory of inflation. Inflation Theory describes a hypothetical event that happened when our universe was very young, less than a second. In an incredibly short span of time, the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion, “swelling” to become several orders of magnitude larger than its previous size, according to Nasa.
Our universe’s inflation is believed to have ended about 14 billion years ago, said Heling Deng, a cosmologist at Arizona State University and expert in multiverse theory. “However, inflation doesn’t stop everywhere at the same time,” Deng told Live Science in an email. “It is possible that as inflation ends in some areas it may continue in others.”
So while inflation came to an end in our universe, there may have been other regions much further away where inflation continued – and continues to this day. Individual universes can “pinch” larger expanding and expanding universes, creating an endless sea of eternal inflation, filled with many individual universes.
In this scenario of eternal inflation, each universe would emerge with its own physical laws, its own collection of particles, its own arrangement of forces, and its own values of fundamental constants. This could explain why our universe has the properties it has – especially the properties that are difficult to explain with fundamental physics, such as black matter or the cosmological constant, said Deng.
“If there is a multiverse, then we would have random cosmological constants in different universes, and it is just a coincidence that the one we have in our universe takes on the value that we have observed,” he said. .
Related: Cosmology: Revealing the history of the universe
The greatest evidence of the multiverse is that life exists, especially intelligent life capable of making cosmological observations. Some aspects of our universe seem special and important in sustaining life, such as the longevity of stars, the abundance of carbon, the availability of light for photosynthesis and the stability of the complex coressaid McCullen Sandora, an affiliate researcher at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. But “all of these features are usually not the case if you receive a random universe,” Sandora told Live Science in an email. “The multiverse offers one explanation why all of these characteristics are favorable in our universe, which is that other universes exist as well, but we observe this one because it is able to support complex life,” Sandora said.
In other words, so much had to line up perfectly in our universe that the existence of life seems unlikely. And if there was only one universe, there probably shouldn’t be life. But in a multiverse, there are enough “chances” for life to appear in at least one universe. But this theory is not particularly convincing, so most scientists remain skeptical of the idea of the multiverse.
Physical proof of the multiverse
Many scientists have tried to find more physical and solid evidence for the existence of the multiverse. For example, if a neighboring universe was close to ours a long time ago, it may have collided with our universe, creating a detectable imprint. This imprint could take the form of distortions in the cosmic microwave background (the light that remained from when the universe was a million times smaller than it is today) or in strange galactic properties in the direction of the collision, according to the Early Universe blog published by University College LondonBut all of these types of research have been left blank, so the multiverse remains hypothetical.
Related: If we live in a multiverse, where are these worlds hiding?
Deng seeks evidence of the multiverse by looking for special types of black holes it could be artifacts from pieces of our universe that have split into their own universe through a process called a quantum tunnel. If some regions of our universe separated in this way, they would have left “bubbles” in our universe that would turn into these unique black holes, which may still exist today, according to Deng.
“The potential detection of these black holes can then indicate the existence of a multiverse,” Deng said.
Life in the Multiverse
Perhaps the multiverse’s most mind-boggling implication is the existence of doppelgängers. If there really is an infinity of universes but a finite number of ways to organize particles in an individual universe, then the same patterns will end up repeating themselves. That would mean that at an incredible (but finite!) Distance there would be an exact copy of you reading an exact copy of this article. And because there would be an infinite number of universes, there would be an infinite number of these exact scenarios that would all occur simultaneously, according to the physics institute.
Related: What would humans know if they lived in a multiverse?
If that makes you a little uncomfortable, it might be reassuring to know that the existence of the multiverse has yet to be proven… yet.
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