Parallel Universes are real!

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>


[Note:  This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis

At 0:50 -0700 4/15/03, Mike Cheponis wrote:
> From: Mike Cheponis <mac () wireless com>
> Subject: Parallel Universes are real!
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 00:50:32 -0700
> MIME-Version: 1.0
>
> <http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000F1EDD-B48A-1E90-8EA5809EC5
880000>
> Parallel Universes
>
> Not just a staple of science fiction, other universes are a direct
> implication of cosmological observations
>
> By Max Tegmark
>
> Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you
> but who lives on a planet called Earth, with misty mountains,
> fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight
> other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours
> in every respect. But perhaps he or she now decides to put down this
> article without finishing it, while you read on.
> The idea of such an alter ego seems strange and implausible, but it
> looks as if we will just have to live with it, because it is
> supported by astronomical observations. The simplest and most
> popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a
> galaxy about 10 to the 1028 meters from here. This distance is so
> large that it is beyond astronomical, but that does not make your
> doppelg”nger any less real. The estimate is derived from elementary
> probability and does not even assume speculative modern physics,
> merely that space is infinite (or at least sufficiently large) in
> size and almost uniformly filled with matter, as observations
> indicate. In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take
> place somewhere. There are infinitely many other inhabited planets,
> including not just one but infinitely many that have people with the
> same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every
> possible permutation of your life choices.
>
> You will probably never see your other selves. The farthest you can
> observe is the distance that light has been able to travel during
> the 14 billion years since the big bang expansion began. The most
> distant visible objects are now about 4 X 1026 meters away--a
> distance that defines our observable universe, also called our
> Hubble volume, our horizon volume or simply our universe. Likewise,
> the universes of your other selves are spheres of the same size
> centered on their planets. They are the most straightforward example
> of parallel universes. Each universe is merely a small part of a
> larger "multiverse."
>
> By this very definition of "universe," one might expect the notion
> of a multiverse to be forever in the domain of metaphysics. Yet the
> borderline between physics and metaphysics is defined by whether a
> theory is experimentally testable, not by whether it is weird or
> involves unobservable entities. The frontiers of physics have
> gradually expanded to incorporate ever more abstract (and once
> metaphysical) concepts such as a round Earth, invisible
> electromagnetic fields, time slowdown at high speeds, quantum
> superpositions, curved space, and black holes. Over the past several
> years the concept of a multiverse has joined this list. It is
> grounded in well-tested theories such as relativity and quantum
> mechanics, and it fulfills both of the basic criteria of an
> empirical science: it makes predictions, and it can be falsified.
> Scientists have discussed as many as four distinct types of parallel
> universes. The key question is not whether the multiverse exists but
> rather how many levels!
>  it has.
>
> <snip>

Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>


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