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Why are physicists taking the idea of multiple universes seriously now? First, there was the discovery in the past few years that inflation seems right. This theory that the universe expanded spectacularly in the first fraction of a second fits a lot of data. Inflation tells us that the universe is probably extremely big and necessarily diverse. On sufficiently big scales, and if inflation lasts long enough, this diversity will produce every possible universe. The same process that forged our universe in a big bang will happen over and over. The mathematics are rickety, but that's what inflation implies: a...

My "Swirl Theory"We hear of string theory, the Big Bang and many other ideas.I have come up with this idea over the past several days. Katrina and Rita has turned my attention towards this as I have discovered a new theory as of late that black holes may be present at the center of each galaxy.Using the theory that a black hole could have possibly been created in space by gases which collapsed into itself churning and sucking gasses and space debris around it into a swirling vortex. This swirling vortex of gas eventually condensed into planets and solar systems.Here...

The Good and Bad of String Theory The most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from skeptics who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual dead end. In its original, simplified form, circa the mid-1980s, string theory held that reality consists of infinitesimally small, wiggling objects called strings, which vibrate in ways that yield the different subatomic particles that comprise the cosmos. Advocates claimed that string theory would smooth out the conflicts between Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics and the result would be a unifying "theory of everything," which could explain everything from...

'Theory of everything' tying researchers up in knots- Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Monday, March 14, 2005 The most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from skeptics who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual dead end. In its original, simplified form, circa the mid-1980s, string theory held that reality consists of infinitesimally small, wiggling objects called strings, which vibrate in ways that yield the different subatomic particles that comprise the cosmos. An analogy is the vibrations on a violin string, which yield different musical notes. Advocates claimed that string theory would smooth out...

Issue 107 / February 2005 Escape from the universe The universe is destined to end. Before it does, could an advanced civilisation escape via a "wormhole" into a parallel universe? The idea seems like science fiction, but it is consistent with the laws of physics and biology. Here's how to do it Michio KakuThe author is professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York. This article is adapted from his book "Parallel Worlds" (Allen Lane) The universe is out of control, in a runaway acceleration. Eventually all intelligent life will face the final doom—the big freeze. An advanced...

String fellows100 years after Einstein changed physics for ever, Alok Jha visits a leafy corner of Princeton to meet his intellectual heirs - still hunting for a theory of everythingAlok JhaThursday January 20, 2005GuardianEdward Witten is so softly spoken that his voice sometimes threatens to drift away completely. His desk is a jumble of papers and his blackboard a mess of equations. But his hushed words come straight to the point and are infused with understanding and passion.Witten's quiet manner belies his status. In his role as de facto scientist-in-chief of string theory, Witten, the Charles Simonyi professor of mathematical...

Nature 433, 10 (06 January 2005); doi:10.1038/433010a In search of hidden dimensions So far, string theory has defied experiments, but Nima Arkani-Hamed thinks he has found a way to put the idea to the test. Geoff Brumfiel finds out how. J. IDE/HARVARD UNIV. NEWS OFFICE String fellow: Nima Arkani-Hamed hopes that particle-collision experiments will show that gravity leaks into other dimensions. Ask most theorists when they think their calculations will be tested experimentally and you'll be told "decades" or sometimes, more honestly, "never".But ask Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist at Harvard University, and he will give you a far closer...

Strings attached Wanted: Proof that the mother of all theories is correct. Pathik Guha reports But is that physics? That seemed to have been the caveat raised by Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate physicist, against the string theory, popularly known as the Theory of Everything. Though the experts, not particularly fond of hypes, don’t like the name that much, the string theory is one of the attempts to unify the two seemingly irreconciliable concepts — relativity and quantum mechanics — which between them explain everything from an apple’s fall to a picture’s formation on a TV screen. Albert Einstein, always...

The Growth of Inflation Twenty-five years after Alan Guth turned cosmology on its head, what's the latest story of the universe's first moments? by Davide Castelvecchi Photo: Fred Ullrich It was a true Eureka moment if there ever was one. On the night of December 6, 1979, an obscure Stanford Linear Accelerator Center postdoc was up late, sweating over an even more obscure problem about particles called magnetic monopoles. Looking at his calculations the next day, the usually low-key Alan Guth annotated the words "SPECTACULAR REALIZATION" at the top of the page. Guth had discovered cosmic inflation, an idea which...

ASPEN, Colo. - They all laughed 20 years ago. It was then that a physicist named John Schwarz jumped up on the stage during a cabaret at the physics center here and began babbling about having discovered a theory that could explain everything. By prearrangement men in white suits swooped in and carried away Dr. Schwarz, then a little-known researcher at the California Institute of Technology. Only a few of the laughing audience members knew that Dr. Schwarz was not entirely joking. He and his collaborator, Dr. Michael Green, now at Cambridge University, had just finished a calculation that would...

December 7, 2004 String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (or Not) By DENNIS OVERBYE SPEN, Colo. - They all laughed 20 years ago. It was then that a physicist named John Schwarz jumped up on the stage during a cabaret at the physics center here and began babbling about having discovered a theory that could explain everything. By prearrangement men in white suits swooped in and carried away Dr. Schwarz, then a little-known researcher at the California Institute of Technology.Only a few of the laughing audience members knew that Dr. Schwarz was not entirely joking. He and his...

Cosmic Conundrum The universe seems uncannily well suited to the existence of life. Could that really be an accident?[snip]

Science as Metaphor Where does Brian Greene stand in the pantheon of physicists? By Amanda Schaffer Posted Tuesday, July 6, 2004, at 6:16 AM PT With his 1999 best seller The Elegant Universe, a NOVA special, and the recent release of a second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, Columbia professor Brian Greene has become the closest thing that physics has to a pop star. A Harvard grad and former Rhodes scholar, lured in 1996 from a professorship at Cornell to a tenured position at Columbia, he has emerged as the chief ambassador of string theory, bringing cutting-edge work to...

<p>Can you access the flash of emancipation you felt the first time you were able to stay up on a bike or propel yourself through the water? Can you remember the way your new knowledge enhanced your life? And can you recall the gratitude you felt toward those people who had the skill and the patience to pass that knowledge along to you?</p>

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne may owe John Preskill a set of encyclopedias. In 1997, the three cosmologists made a famous bet as to whether information that enters a black hole ceases to exist -- that is, whether the interior of a black hole is changed at all by the characteristics of particles that enter it. Hawking's research suggested that the particles have no effect whatsoever. But his theory violated the laws of quantum mechanics and created a contradiction known as the "information paradox." Now physicists at Ohio State University have proposed a solution using string theory, a...

ABSTRACT A model consistent with string theory is proposed for so-called paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (ESP). Our mathematical skills are assumed to derive from a special ‘mental vacuum state’, whose origin is explained on the basis of anthropic and biological arguments, taking into the need for the informational processes associated with such a state to be of a life-supporting character. ESP is then explained in terms of shared ‘thought bubbles’ generated by the participants out of the mental vacuum state. The paper concludes with a critique of arguments sometimes made claiming to ‘rule out’ the possible existence of...

Extra Dimensions Showing Hints Of Scientific Revolution Chicago - Feb 19, 2003 The concept of extra dimensions, dismissed as nonsense even by one of its earliest proponents nearly nine decades ago, may soon help solve seemingly unrelated problems in particle physics, cosmology and gravitational physics, according to a panel of experts who spoke Feb. 15 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Denver. "It doesn't happen often that you get a confluence of ideas and experiments that come together and it's something that obviously would change your whole way of looking at the universe,"...

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada author Clive Douglas Campbell and Phoenix, Arizona, USA publisher Selah Publishing Group are pleased to announce the release of Messiah: 2030. Nobody knows the day and hour of the Second Coming, but the following years are on the front cover: Messiah: 2030 Cluny: 1030 Jesus: 30 David: 970 Abraham: 1970 Noah: 2970 Adam: 3970 Messiah: 2030 claims the Bible prophesies a sixth Arab-Israeli war will be over in 2003 and include the following: --the Palestinians will be deported to Jordan --Israel will go to war with Jordan, possess Jordanian land east of the Jordan River and King...

Ultra-fast particles inflated Universe, physicists say By Mike Martin and copyright 2002 United Press International UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. May 7 (UPI) -- Tachyons -- particles that move faster than the speed of light in defiance of Einstein's strict prohibitions against such amazing speeds -- may be responsible for the inflation that expanded the Universe from zero to trillions of light years in a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only a particle that moves at the phenomenal speed of a rolling tachyon, physicists say, could inflate the Universe as quickly as cosmologist Alan Guth first predicted in his...