"The idea that other universes - as well as our own - lie within "bubbles" of space and time has received a boost.
Studies of the low-temperature glow left from the Big Bang suggest that several of these "bubble universes" may have left marks on our own.
This "multiverse" idea is popular in modern physics, but experimental tests have been hard to come by.
The preliminary work, to be published in Physical Review D, will be firmed up using data from the Planck telescope.
For now, the team has worked with seven years' worth of data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which measures in minute detail the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - the faint glow left from our Universe's formation.
'Mind-blowing'The theory that invokes these bubble universes - a theory formally called "eternal inflation" - holds that such universes are popping into and out of existence and colliding all the time, with the space between them rapidly expanding - meaning that they are forever out of reach of one another.
But Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist at University College London, and her colleagues have now worked out that when these universes are created adjacent to our own, they may leave a characteristic pattern in the CMB.
"I'd heard about this 'multiverse' for years and years, and I never took it seriously because I thought it's not testable," Dr Peiris told BBC News. "I was just amazed by the idea that you can test for all these other universes out there - it's just mind-blowing.""
I've always thought there was one universe... hence "UNI"-verse. But there are about 20 billion galaxies in our universe. And out of all the galaxies, we live in one called the Milky Way, where we have our solar system, and Earth. So if there is live in the Milky Way, I'm sure there is life in the other 20 billion galaxies.
ReplyDeleteYes, I definitely believe there is life somewhere in the universe, but I think it seems silly to assume that there is only one universe as us mere mortals understand little about our galaxy let alone the vastness of space-time.
ReplyDeleteIf total energy of the universe is zero, as claimed by some scientists, then based on this data it can be shown that multiverse theory is probably not true. This is because total energy being zero, its equivalent mass will also be zero due to mass-energy equivalence. Scientists have shown that anything having mass will always occupy some space. So anything that fails to occupy any space for some reason or other cannot have any mass. Our universe perhaps fails to occupy any space, and that is why its mass is zero. If our universe is the sole universe, and if there is nothing outside it, no space, no time and no matter, then in that case it will not occupy any space, because there will be no space for it to occupy. But if multiverse theory is true, then our universe will definitely occupy some space within the multiverse, and thus in that case its mass cannot be zero. But as this mass is zero, therefore multiverse theory cannot be true.
ReplyDeleteHere it may be argued that radiation occupies space but its mass is zero. So here is an example that something occupying space can still be without mass. So our universe can also be without mass even if it occupies some space within the multiverse. In reply we will say that the example cited here is a bad example, because our universe is not any kind of radiation. So if it is without mass, then that can only be due to its not occupying any space, and not due to its being some sort of radiation.
However, if total energy of the universe cannot be taken to be zero, then the conclusion drawn here will not stand. In that case multiverse theory may be true, but we cannot say whether it will be necessarily true.