APOD: Multiverses: Do Other Universes Exist? (2010 Nov 14)

[APOD Robot]

Multiverses: Do Other Universes Exist?

Explanation: Do nearly exact copies of you exist in other universes? If one or more of the multiverse hypotheses is correct, then quite possibly they do. In the above computer-enhanced illustration, independent universes are shown as independent circles or spheres. Spheres may be causally disconnected from all other spheres, meaning no communications can pass between them. Some spheres may contain different realizations of our universe, while others may have different physical laws. An entire set of parallel universes is called a multiverse. The human eye might represent the possibility that realizations of some multiverse hypotheses might only exist in the human mind. One criticism of multiverse hypotheses is that they are frequently difficult to test. Some multiverse hypotheses may therefore be great fun to think about but not practically falsifiable and therefore have no predictive scientific value.

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[alter-ego]

Although I'm not proponent of exact-copies, I like the idea of multiverses. It's getting a stuffy around here - I need a breath of fresh space.

[judy]

not to offend mr. pickover. . . but, this is, once again, not the picture that i hoped to see. not even necessarily a picture that i want to see. space is big. most everything is possible. multiverse? why not? now, how about a takes-my-breath-away-because-it-is-so-beautiful picture tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, etc. thank you.

[owlice]

Well, Judy, you can always look here: http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 29&t=21981

[alter-ego]

not to offend mr. pickover. . . but, this is, once again, not the picture that i hoped to see. not even necessarily a picture that i want to see. space is big. most everything is possible. multiverse? why not? now, how about a takes-my-breath-away-because-it-is-so-beautiful picture tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, etc. thank you.

So Judy, I'd like to see an example of just such a picture. How often does APOD reward you with one?

Though not every day, I do see very satisfying APOD's often. I think both the science and the instruments that are our tools studying said science are very exciting, and the pictures often reflect that, as well as an artistic nature which I also appreciate.

[Boomer12k]

Too much science fiction in the science these days.
I know...I know... "today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact". But really the only Alternate Universe is of the imaginary kind! It is a delusion of "wishful thinking". My opinion.

[nstahl]

It's a very important and very current idea and a not-unattractive representation. I'm for things like this occasionally.

[RawSunlight]

As an artist with a true passion for the imagery, science and wonders we see here nearly every day, I have to say it's pretty disappointing to see what looks like a really bad poster in some hippy head shop. That fractal effect is an off-the-shelf plugin, no artistic effort (or thought?) required, and that eye...really?

I created the 11th birthday image for APOD, compositing and working many wonderful images taken by APOD's growing family of amateur and professional astronomers.
It took a couple of weeks, I did it for free (and would do so every time), because I love this site...there are many others here who would do the same, so it's difficult to understand what an image of such poor thought and quality is doing here.

We've had great illustrations before, but this a sad day

If any astronomers/physicists out there want to illustrate an APOD concept properly, and for free:
hcserrano@aol.com

[OzRattler]

Boo All!

I have read over the last year a number of articles pertaining to multi-verses, ranging from why the gravitational force is so weak ~ it leaks from our Universe to others, to mathematics and probabilities driving our thinking towards there being additional universes in order for the chance conditions existing to favour life.

But that image just misses the point. No critique on the artist. Just the application in this case. I hope I am not being a bit "one eyed" or too crystallised in my thinking or perhaps even caught of a bubble of "unreality".....but....it is not representative of what a multi-verse concept might involve as described in most published documents.

Relatively speaking, move along time, nothing more to see here.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[León]

Click to view full size image

Do nearly exact copies of you exist in other universes? YES
"Man is the measure of all things, which are both are and are not as they are not," said Protagoras and Carl Sagan his agreement "... we are part, in a real and deep, the Cosmos, who were born to him and that our fate depends on him intimately, most basic human events and the most trivial things are connected to the universe and its origins "

Click to view full size image

The universe, therefore, in all dimensions provide a scale model, equal to themselves at different scales, and this, according to Protagoras would be the man (although he lives with intelligence provided, recorded his memory and brings the experience ) applies to the understanding of man himself as for any other observer, visible or invisible.

"I am Walt Whitman, a cosmos .... And nothing says or does not fall on me."

"Thus, according to the speech we may say that the Universe became a living soul and rationale provided by divine providence." Plato's Timaeus "

And therefore understand the anthropic principle of the Cosmos. Cosmos Man in socialize with other men forms one of the variants of the multiverse.
Taken from my book "COSMOGONY" more in spanish in http://segunpasanlossiglos.blogspot.com/

[mexhunter]

If someone like me in another universe, then things are pretty bad.
Greetings
César

[Eamonn Shute]

The problem I have with multiverses is that the best model for our universe is an infinite Euclidean 3-dimensional space (possibly with other compactified dimensions), so there is nowhere for these other universes to exist! And if they do exist outside of our universe, it means that our universe must have a boundary dividing inside from outside. But the idea of the universe having a boundary is absurd - what would it look like?

[Ann]

Max Tegmark, a Swedish-American cosmologist, is one of the foremost proponents of the sort of multiverse that includes different versions of people of the Earth - well, partly because it includes many other versions of the Earth.

I found some of Max Tegmark's arguments here:

So here is the crux of my argument. If you believe in an external reality independent of humans, then you must also believe in what I call the mathematical universe hypothesis: that our physical reality is a mathematical structure.
...
Everything in our world is purely mathematical — including you.
...
The existence of the level-IV multiverse also answers a confounding question emphasised by the physicist John Wheeler: even if we found equations that describe our universe perfectly, then why these particular equations, not others? The answer is that the other equations govern parallel universes, and that our universe has these particular equations because they are statistically likely, given the distribution of mathematical structures that can support observers like us.

I have once read about something that I can't find now, namely a prediction or assessment by Max Tegmark that if there exists perhaps ten to the power of a hundred universes, or maybe ten to the power of ten thousand universes (I don't remember), then somewhere among all these universes there must exist another Earth that is pretty much exactly like our Earth, and another you, whoever you are, who is exactly like you. The reason why the universe would eventually have to recreate every one of us here on Earth is that, if I understand Tegmark's reasoning correctly, the multiverse would eventually run out of new mathematical equations and would be forced to repeat itself, down to actually repeating us, because we are just mathematical equations, according to Tegmark.

Is this true? Is Tegmark right? Heck, how would I know?

Ann

[owlice]

This APOD generated discussion the first time it appeared, too; see here.

It's nice to see so many new posters here! Welcome to Asterisk!!

[owlice]

Max Tegmark, a Swedish-American cosmologist, is one of the foremost proponents of the sort of multiverse that includes different versions of people of the Earth - well, partly because it includes many other versions of the Earth.

Today's APOD links to this page on Tegmark's site.

[Brown Line]

If multiverses exist, that mean that there are an infinite number of analogues of me out there, each one living a somewhat different life. In one, that driver who barely avoided running me over when I was five, was distracted and killed me. In another, Alexander Fleming's lab assistant threw out those petri dishes in which the cultures had died, so penicillin wasn't available to cure my pneumonia when I was twelve. In a third, my father fell ill in 1944, so he never went on the blind date on which he met my mother, and so I never came to be. In a fourth, time travel was invented, a hunter stepped off the track and crushed a butterfly, and changed everything.

What I want to know, though, is why I - the entity who's peering out from behind this pair of eyes - couldn't be in the multiverse in which I win the lottery?

[deeby]

As an artist with a true passion for the imagery, science and wonders we see here nearly every day, I have to say it's pretty disappointing to see what looks like a really bad poster in some hippy head shop.

Haha I was thinking the same thing...like far out man an eye...wow

[orin stepanek]

While I'm not a proponent of multi universes; who knows whats out there?

[biddie67]

Multiple universes as a concept is interesting to think about; apparently mathematical constructs are trying to support this.

But they don't seem likely to me. What is more likely to me is finding areas out in this universe that presents anomalies like you can find in gravity here on Earth. But these anomalies affect the mind - what might be considered as hallucinatory here on Earth might be sound, rational and functional in one of these areas - if the body could survive in it ....

[bystander]

The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? — Stephen Hawking

[drollere]

"frequently difficult to test?" UNIFORMLY IMPOSSIBLE to test.

i can acknowledge but not approve the contemporary trend in physics to dawdle in the imaginary (string theory) or to hypothesize physical facts that can be experimentally "studied" only in computer simulations (dark matter). because eventually scientists will decide that these efforts either do or do not contribute to our unified understanding of physical nature, and deal with them accordingly.

meanwhile, the "multiverse" is simply an excuse for moral mischief, rank speculation equivalent to "what if there is a god?" or "what existed before the universe existed?" in other words, it's perfect for those who like a mathematical twist to their superstitions.

[durant1928]

The APOD definition of multiverses sounds like the definitions of most, if not all, religions.

[Jean Develet]

Yes they do.

Our Universe can be described as the 3D surface of a 4D sphere. The big Bang occurs in this 3D surface and expands to the Big Crunch 180 deg away.
Dark energy can be explained by Gravitational attraction due to the large attracting mass in the Crunch. Ultimately the Big Bang occurs again and the process forever repeats in this 4D sphere. Many 4D spheres may exist, each one a distinctly separate Universe, but our ability to measure that currently doesn't exist. Everything which has formed in our sphere may form independently in all the other 4D spheres. There is probably no connection in that You don't exist in the other spheres they are totally independent.

[bystander]

expands to the Big Crunch

??? How does one expand to a crunch ???

[isoparix]

"....not practically falsifiable and therefore have no predictive scientific value." Hmmm... Mathematics has lots of things that have been neither proven nor falsified but which have great predictive value. "If the Riemann Hypothesis is true, then...", If the Glodbach conjecture is true, then..." are statements which go on to provide/predict lots of novel maths. But the conjectures/hypotheses may be not just 'unproven yet', but formally undecidable - 'victims of Godel" as Marcus de Sautoy put it.

Everything that is Provable is True, but not everything that is True is Provable - and we can prove that. Or saying it another way, Everything that is Falsifiable is False, but not everything that is False is Falsifiable. And that should keep us all on our guard, in all sorts of fields....