“In the past decade an extraordinary claim has captivated cosmologists: that the expanding universe we see around us is not the only one; that billions of other universes are out there, too. There is not one universe—there is a multiverse.”-- Scientific American, August, 2011
Has there been any more mathematical evidence to support or disprove this theory?
The thought of this is blowing my mind!
Mathematical evidence wouldn’t be all that compelling, since we already know the math allows it. Physical evidence is what we’d want to see, and I don’ know of any.
Any sufficiently trendy cosmology is indistinguishable from religion. (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
There is no “the” current theory of the multiverse: See here. There isn’t even consensus on what to call it, apparently.
Read Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. It’s amazingly accessible. He shows that, mathematically, there are nine possible different types of multiverses. Nor are they mutually exclusive. You can have more than one (i.e. a multiverse can spawn or spawn from a different type of multiverse).
The question currently is whether we can even find any physical evidence of any of these. “Maybe” is the best answer.
I don’t recall his name but several years ago I read an article in popular science about various young scientists. One was an Iranian (I think) immigrant who wanted to test particle actions in a collider to use that as evidence of parallel universes. I have no idea what happened to him, but seeing how it was several years ago when I read it and I can’t find anything on google I’m guessing the results weren’t good.
There is also this, not sure how conclusive it is.
That was from 2010, and I can’t find anything further about others finding these “bruises”, so we’re at a standstill there.
Here’s a recent one that they say has finite but many universes and resolves quantum randomness and may be testable:
http://www.sci-news.com/physics/science-many-interacting-worlds-parallel-universes-02249.html
Thank you for your responses. I’m still stunned that it’s even being considered a possibility. A few centuries ago, Earth was the center of a very small universe. Now we can’t even count on the universe being singular. Wow!
I knew about the Multiverse before it had the temperature of the cosmic background microwave radiation.
Michael Moorcock used the word multiverse in close to its modern sense (as a totality of the all the possible alternate worlds) in “The Blood Red Game,” a story in the May 1963 Science Fiction Adventures. In its current physical sense, there’s a cite from New Scientistin 1990.
The only place I had ever heard of the multiverse was science fiction. Landing on the moon was science fiction once. If there are endless numbers of each of us in an endless numbers of universes, then any fiction could be fact in some universe…damn!! That puts Micky Mouse in a whole new light.
And of course the next step is that the multiverse that surrounds us, with billions of universes, is not the only multiverse . . . but merely one in a megaverse.
The current theory of the Multiverse is that Dan DiDio had his head up his ass when he decided to scrap 75 years worth of DC comic book history and is now scrambling to find a graceful way to bring back alienated long-time fans. Something called “Convergence,” expected to hit shelves in April of 2015.
The opening sentence of the Introduction to The Castle of Iron by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt:
That’s talking about stories they first wrote in 1940. As science it loses a bit of luster when you find out that the way to travel between worlds is… symbolic logic. Still a nice anticipation of modern thought.
Symbolic logic. Hmm. Beats that Null-A crap from Van Vogt.