One universe or many? Panel holds unusual debate

World Science ^ | March 30,. 2006

[hershey]

Really interesting. I just about get my mind wrapped around one theory when they come up with another and I'm gullible. Well, I've lived long enough to have seen and experienced phenomena I can't explain. Thanks.

[Elyse]

Thus n/0=n-0-0-...=n because division is repetitive subtraction and nx0=n+0=n because multiplication is repetitive addition in a magnitude sense(rotate the symbols 45 degrees : / to - and x to +). Agree or disagree?

Can I have a third choice? I read that and when my brain sorts it out and sends it back to me all I can hear is the teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon saying, "Wah wah wah."

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Heck, I was thinking DC comics already had this subject pegged with their Multiverse.

First thing I thought of as well!



Yeah, I'm a hopeless comics geek!

[Caipirabob]

Say it ain't so!

Sadly so for Sulu....'Star Trek' Actor George Takei Comes Out

[D-fendr]

If the scientists do succeed in creating a universe in a laboratory are they not doing what the God of this universe did…

Not quite, there is still the tiny matter of ex nihilo...

[GrandEagle]

"42"
I thought I was the only one who remembered this.
You know, your showing your age.....

Cordially,
GE

[BooksForTheRight.com]

There can be only one universe. The definition of the universe is all that there is. A concept so simple that even simple-minded scientists can get it.

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

Who knows? It is speculation at best because if verifiable data was available people would be showing it. The Universe, or our (my) version of a Multiverse, is a grand and wondrous thing worthy of investigation and discussion don't you think?

[RonnG]

It's a great theory, the best kind really, because you never have to prove it as long as your arithmetic is consistent.

[Tribune7]

A better illustration for multi-universe pings. :-)

[Quark2005]

If the scientists do succeed in creating a universe in a laboratory, are they not doing what the God of this universe did in Genesis/the Big Bang?

Maybe our universe is a baby universe in a laboratory in another universe, did ya ever think of that one? ...:^)

Seriously though - what they're talking about is a mini-black hole, with its own event horizon, only its own 'universe' in a technical sense - they would evaporate via Hawking radiation in a fraction of a second. (Such things are probably already created by the constant flux of high-energy cosmic rays bombarding the earth, just at event rates too small to detect.)

[GreenLanternCorps]

Triggering post-traumatic shock!


I was and am a HUGE Earth 2 fan and I still haven't forgiven DC for the Crisis. Not to mention killing off Supergirl, The Flash (Barry Allen), and rewriting their history...

[GreenLanternCorps]

Did they have all 16 Samatha Carters at the conference?

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I see we have a naive First-Causationist among us. I'm curious how you cling to that view. Why do you think it's more likely than the many modern speculations that don't require it?

You are awefully flippant. Naive?

When the established view is that there was a beginning, you have to come up with something very concrete to rock the boat. Just because someone came up with an idea does not make it as likely as the original.

Regardless, everything WE can observe in our daily life suggests there is a beggining and and end to all things we can detect with our senses

You can not throw that out and expect to be taken seriously. Especially by being flippant.

[VadeRetro]

That's a lot of sex appeal going nowhere.

[America's Resolve]

I remember reading a piece by Hawking, sheesh, must be 15 years ago now.

The basic premise was that black holes DO actually give off a very low level radiation in addition to sucking stuff in.

If a black hole were in such a state that it was giving off more than it took in, it would shrink in size.

Once it shrank down to a certain size, say a few atoms, it would "pop" out of this universe and create a universe all its own.

Being only a few atoms large, it would be an inherently unstable structure and wouldn't last very long, but it would be a universe of its own, according to the paper.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

[fso301]

apochriphal => apochryphal => apocryphal => http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/apocryphal

Thanks. LOL!

[Mr. C]

"...Maybe our universe is a baby universe in a laboratory in another universe, did ya ever think of that one? ...:"

Wasn't there an Outer Limits or twilight Zone episode that said just that?

[snarks_when_bored]

Is there anything in physics that is actually infinite?

I tend to think not (hence my inclusion of 'perhaps' in my parenthetical remarks). But certainly physicists use infinite spaces of various sorts in their theorizing—e.g., finite-dimensional de Sitter spaces containing infinite spacetime volume, infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, etc..

Infinite gives you sufficient "probability resources' to go anywhere you wish with any possible theoretic supposition.

I think you might be using 'infinite' in a colloquial sense rather than a mathematical one. The infinite spaces of mathematics are well-defined objects with specific properties that are not subject to arbitrary modification.

[fso301]

References?

1 Kings 8:27 - "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!"

2 Corinthians 12:2 - "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago--whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows--such a man was caught up to the third heaven."

See also the books of Enoch.