The Multiverse

Here we present some fairly controversial physics, based on the idea of "multiple universes" or Multiverse theory. This is not a reference to Michael Moorcock's literary Multiverse! Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, said in 1998 that "This new concept is, potentially, as drastic an enlargement of our cosmic perspective as the shift from pre-Copernican ideas to the realization that the Earth is orbiting a typical star on the edge of the Milky Way."

There is a useful overview of Multiverse theory on the Pomona College web site. To the right you can see a really good BBC interview with Michio Kaku, and you can also watch a five part BBC documentary:
episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5.

Many scientists are concerned that the Universe we inhabit is so finely tuned to us. Some have embraced the anthropic principal, but to many, myself included, the Weak Anthropic Principal is too wishy-washy, while the Strong Anthropic Principal is too close to intelligent design. The idea of a Multiverse, postulating a possibly infinite number of universes, or a universe that re-creates itself an infinite number of times, overcomes these difficulties with statistics. If there are an infinite number of universes, it is no surprise that we inhabit one that is suitable for our type of life. Of course, what we discuss here is tied up intimately with the origins of the Universe, as described in the sections on the Early Universe and Alternatives to the Big Bang.

In this section, I discuss some of the various theories and the scientists behind them. I have tended to concentrate on the ideas that I find most interesting or most appealing, so some proposals, like Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, also known as the Ultimate Ensemble, have been left out. Some theories, the Chaotic Inflation postulate, for example, have become mainstream. I hope you find these interesting, and do remember that all the ideas in this section have a mathematical formulation to back them up. While only one of them, at the most, could be correct, they are all (theoretically) feasible.

Science - Beyond the Universe