But, but, I thought ...
Posted on 02/19/2011 1:59:12 AM PST by LibWhacker
Modern cosmology theory holds that our universe may be just one in a vast collection of universes known as the multiverse. MIT physicist Alan Guth has suggested that new universes (known as “pocket universes”) are constantly being created, but they cannot be seen from our universe.
In this view, “nature gets a lot of tries — the universe is an experiment that’s repeated over and over again, each time with slightly different physical laws, or even vastly different physical laws,” says Jaffe.
Some of these universes would collapse instants after forming; in others, the forces between particles would be so weak they could not give rise to atoms or molecules. However, if conditions were suitable, matter would coalesce into galaxies and planets, and if the right elements were present in those worlds, intelligent life could evolve. Some physicists have theorized that only universes in which the laws of physics are “just so” could support life, and that if things were even a little bit different from our world, intelligent life would be impossible. In that case, our physical laws might be explained “anthropically,” meaning that they are as they are because if they were otherwise, no one would be around to notice them.
MIT physics professor Robert Jaffe and his collaborators felt that this proposed anthropic explanation should be subjected to more careful scrutiny, and decided to explore whether universes with different physical laws could support life.
The MIT physicists have showed that universes quite different from ours still have elements similar to carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and could therefore evolve life forms quite similar to us, even when the masses of elementary particles called quarks are dramatically altered.
Jaffe and his collaborators felt that this proposed anthropic explanation should be subjected to more careful scrutiny, so they decided to explore whether universes with different physical laws could support life. Unlike most other studies, in which varying only one constant usually produces an inhospitable universe, they examined more than one constant.
Whether life exists elsewhere in our universe is a longstanding mystery. But for some scientists, there’s another interesting question: could there be life in a universe significantly different from our own?
In work recently featured in a cover story in Scientific American, Jaffe, former MIT postdoc, Alejandro Jenkins, and recent MIT graduate Itamar Kimchi showed that universes quite different from ours still have elements similar to carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and could therefore evolve life forms quite similar to us. Even when the masses of the elementary particles are dramatically altered, life may find a way.
“You could change them by significant amounts without eliminating the possibility of organic chemistry in the universe,” says Jenkins.
Although bizarre life forms might exist in universes different from ours, Jaffe and his collaborators decided to focus on life based on carbon chemistry. They defined as “congenial to life” those universes in which stable forms of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen would exist.
“If you don’t have a stable entity with the chemistry of hydrogen, you’re not going to have hydrocarbons, or complex carbohydrates, and you’re not going to have life,” says Jaffe. “The same goes for carbon and oxygen. Beyond those three we felt the rest is detail."
They set out to see what might happen to those elements if they altered the masses of elementary particles called quarks. There are six types of quarks, which are the building blocks of protons, neutrons and electrons. The MIT team focused on “up”, “down” and “strange” quarks, the most common and lightest quarks, which join together to form protons and neutrons and closely related particles called “hyperons.”
In our universe, the down quark is about twice as heavy as the up quark, resulting in neutrons that are 0.1 percent heavier than protons. Jaffe and his colleagues modeled one family of universes in which the down quark was lighter than the up quark, and protons were up to a percent heavier than neutrons. In this scenario, hydrogen would no longer be stable, but its slightly heavier isotopes deuterium or tritium could be. An isotope of carbon known as carbon-14 would also be stable, as would a form of oxygen, so the organic reactions necessary for life would be possible.
The team found a few other congenial universes, including a family where the up and strange quarks have roughly the same mass (in our universe, strange quarks are much heavier and can only be produced in high-energy collisions), while the down quark would be much lighter. In such a universe, atomic nuclei would be made of neutrons and a hyperon called the “sigma minus,” which would replace protons. They published their findings in the journal Physical Review D last year.
Jaffe and his collaborators focused on quarks because they know enough about quark interactions to predict what will happen when their masses change. However, “any attempt to address the problem in a broader context is going to be very difficult,” says Jaffe, because physicists are limited in their ability to predict the consequences of changing most other physical laws and constants.
A group of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has done related studies examining whether congenial universes could arise even while lacking one of the four fundamental forces of our universe — the weak nuclear force, which enables the reactions that turn neutrons into protons, and vice versa. The researchers showed that tweaking the other three fundamental forces could compensate for the missing weak nuclear force and still allow stable elements to be formed.
That study and the MIT work are different from most other studies in this area in that they examined more than one constant. “Usually people vary one constant and look at the results, which is different than if you vary multiple constants,” says Mark Wise, professor of physics at Caltech, who was not involved in the research. Varying only one constant usually produces an inhospitable universe, which can lead to the erroneous conclusion that any other congenial universes are impossible.
One physical parameter that does appear to be extremely finely tuned is the cosmological constant — a measure of the pressure exerted by empty space, which causes the universe to expand or contract. When the constant is positive, space expands, when negative, the universe collapses on itself. In our universe, the cosmological constant is positive but very small — any larger value would cause the universe to expand too rapidly for galaxies to form. However, Wise and his colleagues have shown that it is theoretically possible that changes in primordial cosmological density perturbations could compensate at least for small changes to the value of the cosmological constant.
In the end, there is no way to know for sure what other universes are out there, or what life they may hold. But that will likely not stop physicists from exploring the possibilities, and in the process learning more about our own universe.
Actually I agree with you, catfish 1957. Hubble may well be all and more, and worth more than a look <-—> see, here from earth, where the pictures are ‘beamed’ down to.
Dang! I was born in the wrong universe!
Could our multiverse be one of many multiverses?
Nobody dies in the multi-universe continuum—granted you face death,perhaps several times a day but you never die because upon “death,” you instantly occupy your other person and have no memory of the death episode because it never happened.
As far as you are concerned you either never faced death or you dodged it.
My wife has buried my ill ass many times but I am still here.
Yes,I played with acid in my youth but I am just finnnee gabblee glook shlabonk.
How do you draw that conclusion? Certainly the Bible talks only about this one, but isn't it unwarranted speculation to arbitrarily limit God's power to also create other universes?
And Semper Fi to you as well, Marine.
Just my (somewhat crude) way of poking a little fun at the people whose careers are spent thinking, talking, and writing about arcane theories such as this.
Fair question... Anything is possible I suppose but none of those ideas would seem to be consistent with what the Bible reveals about the character of God or consistent with the many passages of scripture for which the concept of multiple populated universes would have a bearing. Scripture lays out everything that is important for mankind to know and nowhere does the idea of another universe similar to ours show up. So, does that means that either such a universe doesn’t exist or does it means that God didn’t deem it important for us to know about? Based on the enormity of what is revealed, the latter would seem to be impossible. Consider the question from a broader scope (and related to this) is the idea that there might be a similar universe but without humans on it, or plant life but no animal life. However, dealing with a universe that has people on it would present such a huge theological problem that it would have to be discounted. As a ‘free will’ created and fallen mankind, God’s Son Jesus Christ was sent to die and to be the Saviour of humans.... if there was a similar race of people elsewhere and who had that gift of free will, that mean that Christ would have to die again .... and again and again depending on how many such universes were supposedly created. That just didn’t happen....Christ died once for the human race and that’s it. As for the possibility for instance of a universe that just had plant life on it, it would simply be inconsistent with many references to the fact that Earth is completely unique. Genesis 1:1 (KJV) ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’.....it doesn’t say earths in the plural. The creation story says that earth was created on the first day.... it wasn’t until the fourth day that other interstellar objects including our own sun and moon were created. If there was going to be a belief that other populated universes existed prior to ours, it would mean that they would have been completely destroyed since our universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing). That would mean that God made a mistake and had to start over... not consistent with the character of God. If God created populated universes after ours, that would seem to imply that he was hedging his bets on one of them turning out right... not consistent with the character of God.
I’m sure there are many answers to your question that are far better than mine but it is a Saturday and I must go and straighten out my garage... plus a lot of other things.
There is one universe and numerous realities.
Sheesh.. How hard is this to figure out?
Why? Did not Jesus himself say “In My Father’s House there are many mansions”?
That answer is as satisfying as 42.
It would kind of look like just exactly what we see out there.
MIT physics professor Robert Jaffe and his collaborators felt that this proposed anthropic explanation should be subjected to more careful scrutiny,
"Gee. Ya think."
Okay. That means that... our whole solar system... could be, like... one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being. This is too much! That means... -one tiny atom in my fingernail could be-- -Could be one little...
tiny universe.
Could l buy some pot from you?
Yes, but since different people see things differently, it’s not really proven or unproven.
If you would like to interpret that passage that way, be my guest. I think you are out of step with the most accepted interpretation though which is that it means there is lots of room and accommodations for all in God’s heavenly kingdom. You would be reading something into it that’s not there if you go further than that. What makes you think that this has to do with ‘universes’? What other scripture would you point to that supports that interpretation?
LOL!!! Never thought of it like that.
I grabbed the smaller one posted in the 'reply' since I knew where to find it.
For a long while now I've had desk topped this other image, spread to fill the screen;
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