2023-09-24 02:58:37
Getty Images There is more than one world… and probably more than one you.
Picture this: It’s the day of an important interview but you overslept, so you quickly get dressed, grab some food and run to the bus stop..
But you can’t get on the bus, so you have no choice but to walk, quickly.
You check your watch as you turn the corner and collide with an unsuspecting pedestrian. Obfuscated, you curse and leave.
You finally arrive at the appointment, sweaty and agitated, only to discover that your interviewer is that pedestrian at whom you just launched a vicious barrage of profanities.
Yeah, Sometimes it seems like the universe just isn’t on your side..
But luckily, there are so many to choose from..
Because of our parents’ inordinate affection, many of us live under the false impression that we are, for some reason, special: a totally unique mix of atoms and personal stories that combine to make that precious someone we call “I.”
The point is that the world of contemporary physics tells us just the opposite.
It tells us that somewhere in the vast cosmos there are other worlds in which identical versions of you are living happily under the impression that they, and only they, are the real you.
BBC Our guide in the multiverse: Swedish-American Max Tegmark, professor at MIT and one of the founders of the Institute for Fundamental Questions.
I am referring, of course, to the multiversea theory that maintains that our universe is nothing more than one of many infinite universes, of infinite variety.
Now, that may sound really crazy, and it is, but it’s actually based on pretty solid science.
In the early 1980s, researchers decided to measure the afterglow of the Big Bang and made the surprising discovery that the radiation levels were identical at opposite ends of the observable universe.
This led to a theory called inflation, the idea that after the Big Bang, space-time expanded at breakneck speed, creating a uniform and potentially infinite cosmic plane.
“When we talk about our universe in astrophysics, we are not referring to all of spacebut only to a spherical region from which light has had time to reach us during the 13.8 billion years since our Big Bang,” renowned physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark explained to the BBC.
“If that’s our universe and space is bigger than that, then by definition there are other universes too, full of galaxies and other interesting things that are just as real as ours.
“People there would call that their universe.”
So if there are other worlds out there, what would they be like?
Level I: Cosmic inflation
Getty Images
¿Seremos multitudes?
“The level I multiverse is just other regions of space, the size of our universe,” Tegmark said.
“The only difference is that the particles there started in slightly different places than the ones here., so the United Kingdom could have lost World War II instead of winning it; my name might not be Max Tegmark but Max Shmerkark…
“No matter how unlikely it is that there is a copy of me with some other traits, that probability is not zerobecause it happened here that I exist in this form, so if you roll the dice infinite times, there will be other copies of me, some very similar, and many more that are a little like me but different.”
What does that mean for you?
Well, probability dictates that somewhere in the cosmos there is a version of you who didn’t fall asleep on the day of the interview and another who managed to catch the bus. Even one who never went to the interview, because she is an athlete or an astronaut.
The point is that there are infinite possibilities within this plane, infinite atom-by-atom reconstructions of you, limited only by their conformity to the physical laws of our universe.
But what if they weren’t limited?
Level II: Eternal chaotic inflation
Getty Images Worlds in which perhaps we are made of music.
“The Level II multiverse is still an infinite space, like the Level 1 multiverse, but it is much more diverse,” Tegmark said.
“If you go super far into space, you’ll reach regions where not only did history develop differently, but you’ll be taught different things in physics classes.
“That’s because we’ve learned that even what we think is empty space is probably a substancewhich can freeze and melt, and be in many different forms.
“That inflation process that we believe made this vast cosmic space was so violent, that it created an infinite amount of each type of space.”
At level 2, all physical laws are thrown out the window..
Maybe in another universe gravity works differently. Maybe we are made of sound or we are flat or maybe strange floating balls of energy that exist in 12 dimensions.
Not only is every conceivable universe possible, but also every inconceivable universe, if you can imagine it, which you can’t, by definition.
Level III: Quantum Multiverse
Getty Images Each version would do what it wanted, without knowing of the existence of the other.
“While level I and II parallel universes are far, far away in our own space, the Level III multiverse is here in a sensein this thing called the quantum Hilbert space,” explained Max Tegmark.
“We know that elementary particles can be in two places at the same time.
“But I’m made of elementary particles, so if they can be in two places once, so can I..
“So, one version of me could be here talking to you, while another version of me pulled ice cream out of the freezer and is eating it somewhere else.
“And a quantum censorship effect called “decoherence” was discovered that explains why these two versions of Max are completely unaware of each other.
“So it actually feels like reality is branching off into parallel branches.
“But those two Maxes, the one eating ice cream right now and the one talking to you, feel like they’re the only ones.”
Level IV: Mathematical Multiverse
BBC In this multiverse you could even touch Plato’s solids.
“The Level IV multiverse is the most diverse of all.
“In it, every physical reality that corresponds to a mathematical structure – that can be described with mathematics – exists not only mathematically, but also physically,” said the physicist.
“So you could have a universe where time doesn’t even flow continuously, but discretely, like a computer game; or even have some universes that simply don’t have time.”
To clarify, Tegmark stressed that “it’s not that the level IV multiverse exists in space and time, but that space and time exist in some of those level IV universes.”
In ours, he said, “we have space and time, we have the right kind of elementary particle physics that supports life.
“So We live in an oasis, and the entire reality is like a huge version of the Sahara desert, with an occasional oasis here and there“.
But then?
Getty Images Not everyone is so round.
Multiverses are predictions based on very well-supported scientific theories, so, At least for the moment, it looks like all of these are here to stay.
And maybe that’s okay. Science, after all, is just a tool we use to investigate the world around us.
When we discover something that can trigger existential crises, it is not that the world changed, but that we simply begin to look at it with new eyes.
“Some people ask me how our universe gives meaning to our lives as conscious beings, but it’s actually the other way around: We are the ones who give meaning to our universe“Tegmark says.
“It is through us, small minority parts of our universe that have the complexity of experiencing things, that our universe can become aware of itself.”
Who knows, maybe when we finally accept that we’re just great apes sitting on a rock traveling at 108,000 kilometers per hour across a potentially infinite expanse, we can stop taking everything so seriously.
* This article is adapted from the video made by Max Tobin and Dill Steele for BBC Reel. If you want to see it, Click here.
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