Are there other universes besides ours? Other universes

• Does God exist?
• How did it all start?
• What's in a black hole?
• Can we predict the future?
• Is time travel possible?
• Will we be able to survive on Earth?
• Is there other intelligent life in the universe?
• Should we colonize space?
• Will artificial intelligence surpass us?
• How do we shape the future?

Lots of tasks

In his book, Hawking says that humans have no choice but to leave Earth or risk being "destroyed."

He says computers will surpass humans in intelligence within the next 100 years, but "we need to make sure computers have goals that are consistent with ours."

Hawking says the human race has improved its mental and physical properties, but a genetically engineered race of superhumans with superior memory and immunity to disease will surpass the rest.

He believed that by the time people realized what was happening with climate change, it might already be too late.

Hawking says the simplest explanation is that God does not exist and that there is no compelling evidence for an afterlife, although people can continue to live under the influence.

In the next 50 years, according to Hawking, we will begin to understand how life began and perhaps discover life existing elsewhere in the universe.

"He was deeply concerned that while the problems are global, we are becoming increasingly local in our thinking," says Lucy Hawking. “This is a call for unity, for humanity, to reclaim ourselves and challenge the challenges that lie before us.”

In his final scientific paper, Hawking sheds light on black holes and the information paradox; the new work also calculates the entropy of black holes.

Secrets of the heavenly map

Sensational conclusions were prompted by data obtained using the Planck space telescope (European Space Agency's Planck satellite). Scientists created the most accurate map of the microwave background - the so-called cosmic microwave background radiation, preserved since the birth of the Universe. And they saw more than strange traces.

It is believed that this very relict radiation that fills space is an echo of the Big Bang - when 13.8 billion years ago something unimaginably tiny and incredibly dense suddenly “exploded”, expanded and turned into the world around us. That is, to our Universe.

It is impossible to understand how the “act of creation” happened, even if you try. Only with the help of a very distant analogy can one imagine that something thundered, blazed and flew away. But either an “echo”, or a “reflection”, or some scraps remained. They formed a mosaic, which is presented on the map, where light (“hot”) areas correspond to more powerful electromagnetic radiation. And vice versa.

New data made it possible to obtain an accurate picture of the distribution of the cosmic microwave background radiation of the Universe - much more accurate than what was available before

“Hot” and “cold” spots of the microwave background should alternate evenly. But the map shows: there is no orderly distribution. The Universe is not homogeneous. Much more powerful relict radiation comes from the southern part of the sky than from the northern one. And what is absolutely surprising: the mosaic is replete with dark gaps - some holes and extended gaps, the appearance of which cannot be explained from the standpoint of modern physics.

Neighbors make themselves known

Back in 2005, theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her colleague Richard Holman, professor at Carnegie Mellon University) predicted the existence of microwave background anomalies. And they assumed that they arose due to the fact that our Universe is influenced by other Universes located nearby. In a similar way, stains appear on the ceiling of your apartment from “leaking” neighbors, which made themselves felt by such visual anomalies of the “plaster background”.

There were obvious anomalies in the distribution of the cosmic microwave background radiation: distortions, gaps, large and small holes

On the previous - less clear - map, compiled from data from NASA's WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) probe, which had been flying since 2001, nothing completely out of the ordinary was visible. Just hints. And now the picture is clear. And sensational. According to scientists, the observed anomalies mean that our Universe is not alone. There are countless others.

Laura and Richard are not alone in their views either. For example, Stephen Feeney from University College London saw at least four abnormally “cold” round spots in a picture of the microwave background, which he called “bruises.” And now he proves that these “bruises” arose from direct impacts of neighboring Universes on ours.

In his opinion, Stefanna, Universes arise and disappear like bubbles of steam in a boiling liquid. And having arisen, they collide. And they bounce off each other, leaving marks.

Microwave background anomalies indicate the existence of other Universes

Where is it taking them?

Several years ago, a group of NASA specialists led by astrophysicist Alexander Kashlinsky discovered strange behavior in about 800 distant galaxy clusters. It turned out that they were all flying in the same direction - towards a certain part of space - at a speed of 1000 kilometers per second. This universal movement was called the "Dark Stream".

It was recently revealed that the Dark Stream spans as many as 1,400 galaxy clusters. And carries them to an area located somewhere near the borders of our Universe. Why did it happen? Or there - beyond limits inaccessible to observation - there is some incredibly huge mass that attracts matter. Which is unlikely. Or the galaxy is sucked into another Universe.

Flying from world to world

Is it possible to get from our Universe to some other one? Or are the neighbors separated by some insurmountable barrier?

The obstacle is surmountable, say Professor Thibault Damour from the French Institute of Advanced Scientific Research (Institut des Hautes E"tudes Scientifiques - IHE"S) and his colleague Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Sergei Solodukhin from the Moscow Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FIAN ), who now works at the German International University Bremen. According to scientists, there are passages leading to other worlds. From the outside, they - these passages - look exactly like “black holes”. But in reality they are not.

The tunnels that connect distant parts of our Universe are called “wormholes” by some astrophysicists, and “wormholes” by others. The point is that, having dived into such a hole, you can almost instantly emerge somewhere in another galaxy, millions or even billions of light years away. At least theoretically, such a journey is possible within our Universe. And if you believe Damur and Solodukhin, then you can dive even further - in a completely different Universe. It seems that the way back is not closed either.

Scientists, through calculations, have imagined what “wormholes” leading to neighboring Universes should look like. And it turned out that such objects are not particularly different from the already known “black holes”. And they behave the same way - they absorb matter, deform the fabric of space-time.

The only significant difference: you can get through the “hole”. And remain whole. And the “black hole” will tear the ship approaching it into atoms with its monstrous gravitational field.

Researchers do not rule out that the Universes are connected to each other by so-called “wormholes,” which from the outside look like “black holes.”
Photo: International University Bremen

Unfortunately, Thibault and Solodukhin do not know how to accurately distinguish a “black hole” from a “wormhole” from a great distance. Like, this will only become clear during the process of immersion in the object.

However, radiation emanates from “black holes” - the so-called Hawking radiation. And “wormholes” don’t emit anything. But the radiation is so small that it is incredibly difficult to catch it against the background of other sources.

It is not yet clear how long the leap to another Universe will take. Maybe a fraction of a second, or maybe billions of years.

And the most amazing thing: according to scientists, “wormholes” can be created artificially - at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), colliding particles at an energy many times greater than the currently achieved level. That is, it will not be “black holes” that were formed that were used to scare us even before the experiments on simulating the Big Bang began, but “wormholes” will open. Physicists have not yet explained how scary this particular development of events is. But the prospect itself - to create an entrance to another Universe - looks tempting.

BY THE WAY

We live inside a soccer ball

Until recently, scientists proposed many options for the shape of our world: from a banal ball-bubble, to a torus-donut, to a paraboloid. Or even... cups with a handle. Well, you can’t see from Earth what the Universe looks like from the outside. However, now, having taken a closer look at the distribution of cosmic microwave background radiation, astrophysicists have concluded: the Universe is like a soccer ball, “stitched” from pentagons - dodecahedrons, in scientific terms.

“The ball is, of course, huge,” says Douglas Scott from the University of British Columbia (Canada), “but not so huge as to be considered infinite.”

Scientists again refer to the strange order of distribution of “cold” and “hot” areas. And they believe that a “pattern” of such a scale could arise only in a Universe limited in size. From the calculations it follows: from edge to edge there are only 70 billion light years.

What's beyond the edge? They prefer not to think about it. They explain: the space seems to be closed on itself. And the “ball” in which we live seems to be “mirror-like” from the inside. And if you send a beam from the Earth in any direction, it will definitely come back someday. And some rays supposedly have already returned, reflected from the “mirror edge”. And more than once. Like, this is why astronomers see some (the same) galaxies in different parts of the sky. Yes, and from different sides.

admin.- Can you imagine how close our scientists have come to unraveling the universe! But in fact, a long time ago (in 1994), the Russian scientist Nikolai Levashov developed and proposed a coherent theory of the universe, which is confirmed step by step by world scientists. For those who want to try to understand this issue on their own, we recommend that you read the book by N.V. Levashova"

Now, obviously, the Universe didn't always continue to expand this way, because here we are, so inflation must have ended and given rise to the Big Bang. You can imagine that inflation starts at the top of a flat hill and slowly rolls down like a ball. As long as the ball remains near the top and rolls slowly, inflation continues and the universe expands exponentially. Once the ball rolls down into the valley, inflation ends and the energy dissipates. The energy inherent in space itself is converted into matter and radiation. We are moving from inflation to the Big Bang.

• Inflation is not a ball, not a classical field - but rather a wave that propagates over time, like a quantum field.
• This means that as time goes on and more and more space is created due to inflation, certain areas are likely to see the end of inflation and others to see it continue.
• The areas where inflation has ended give rise to the Big Bang and our Universe; in others, inflation continues.
• Over time, due to expansion dynamics, no two areas where inflation has ended will be able to interact or collide. In between there will be areas of continued inflation that will push the former apart.

It's worth noting that we don't know much about this inflationary state, so it faces a lot of uncertainties and opportunities:

• We don't know how long the inflationary state lasted before it ended and led to the Big Bang. The universe can be either not much larger than what we see, or much larger, or even infinite.
• We don't know whether the areas where inflation has ended are the same or very different from our own. It is likely that there are unknown physical dynamics that lead to the fact that all fundamental constants - particle masses, interaction forces, the amount of dark energy - are the same for all regions where inflation has ended. It is also possible that different areas will have different physics.

And if these universes are all the same, speaking of the laws of physics, and the number of these universes is truly infinite, and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is completely fair, does this mean that there are parallel universes in which everything happened exactly the same as in our Universe, not counting one tiny quantum result?


In other worlds, everything could happen exactly the same as in ours, except for one tiny detail, because of which your life took a completely different path...

• When did you choose to work overseas rather than stay in the country?
• When did you stand up for a girl and not let her be offended?
• When did you kiss her goodbye instead of just letting her leave?
• When at some turning point did something prevent you from losing her?

Just think about it: what if there is a Universe for every possible outcome of events? If the probability of the existence of such a Universe is not zero, and the number of such worlds is infinite, then everything is possible? Only for this to happen a lot of “ifs” must happen. The inflationary state was supposed to remain not just long, but indefinite.

If the Universe expanded exponentially - not just for a tiny fraction of a second, but for 13.8 billion years (that's about 4 x 10 17 seconds) - we are dealing with a gigantic volume of space. After all, although there are regions of space where inflation has ended, most of the volume of the Universe is represented by regions where inflation has not ended. That is, we are talking about at least 10 10^50 universes that started out with the same conditions as our own. This is 10¹⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ ⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ universes. Quite a large number. And the numbers describing the number of possible outcomes of particle interactions will be even greater.

There are 10 90 particles in each Universe, and we need them all to go through exactly the same history of 13.8 billion years to give us a Universe identical to ours. For a Universe with 10 90 quantum particles that will interact with each other for 13.8 billion years in 10 10^50 possible variations... The number you see above, for example, is simply 1000! (or (10 3)!), factorial 1000, which describes the number of possible permutations for 1000 different particles at any given time. Imagine how much larger the number (10 3)! is than (10 1000). (10 3)! - that's almost 10 2477.

Thousands factorial: all numbers from 1 to 1000 multiplied together

But there are not 1000 particles in the Universe, but 10 90. Every time two particles interact, there is more than one result - a whole quantum spectrum of results. There are many more possible outcomes in the Universe than (10 90)!, and this number is many googolplexes larger than the measly 10 10^50.

In other words, the number of possible outcomes of particle interactions in any universe tends to infinity faster than the number of possible universes increases due to inflation. Even putting aside questions such as that there may be an infinite number of possible values ​​for fundamental constants, particles and interactions, and even putting aside questions of interpretation such as whether the many-worlds interpretation describes our physical reality, the fact is that the number of possible outcomes is increasing so rapidly - much faster than just exponentially - that if inflation actually goes on forever, there won't be a single parallel universe identical to ours.

This means that there can be a huge number of Universes, with different laws and so on. But they are not enough to give us alternative versions of ourselves. What does this mean to you?

That there is no other copy of you anywhere in the world. And there is no future that someone else will choose for you. Therefore, live this life as no one else in all parallel universes would live it.

Three decades ago, the so-called inflation theory began to spread in the scientific world. At the center of this concept is the idea of ​​a special form of matter, called “false vacuum”. It has very high energy characteristics and high negative pressure. The most amazing property of a false vacuum is repulsive gravity. A space filled with such a vacuum can quickly expand in different directions.

Spontaneously arising vacuum “bubbles” spread at the speed of light, but practically do not collide with each other, because the space between such formations expands at the same speed. It is assumed that humanity lives in one of many such “bubbles”, which are perceived as an expanding Universe.

From an ordinary point of view, multiple “bubbles” of a false vacuum are a series of other, completely self-sufficient bubbles. The catch is that there are no direct material connections between these hypothetical formations. Therefore, unfortunately, it will not be possible to move from one universe to another.

Scientists conclude that the number of universes that look like “bubbles” can be infinite, and each of them expands without any restrictions. In universes that never intersect with the one where the solar system is located, an infinite number of options for the development of events are formed. Who knows, maybe in one of these “bubbles” the history of the Earth is exactly repeated?

Parallel universes: hypotheses require confirmation

It is possible, however, that other universes, which can conventionally be called parallel, are based on completely different physical principles. Even the set of fundamental constants in “bubbles” may differ significantly from those provided in the native Universe of humanity.

It is quite possible that life, if it is a natural result of the development of any matter, in a parallel universe can be built on principles that are incredible for earthlings. What then could the Mind be like in neighboring universes? Only science fiction writers can judge this for now.

It is not possible to directly test the hypothesis about the existence of another universe or even many such worlds. Researchers are working to collect “circumstantial evidence,” looking for workarounds to confirm scientific assumptions. So far, scientists have only more or less convincing guesses based on the results of studying cosmic microwave background radiation, which sheds light on the history of the origin of the Universe.

“Come on, there are other worlds than these,” wrote Stephen King in The Dark Tower. One of the most interesting topics to discuss is that our reality - our Universe as we perceive it - may not be the only version

“Come on, there are other worlds than these,” wrote Stephen King in The Dark Tower. One of the most interesting topics for discussion is that our reality - our Universe as we perceive it - may not be the only version of what is happening. Perhaps there are other Universes; perhaps they also have their own versions, in which other events occur and other decisions are made - a kind of multiverse.

The American astronomical community regularly discusses parallel worlds and their fantastic or scientific aspects and meets annually. At the last meeting, Max Tegmark, a famous astrophysicist, spoke about parallel worlds.

The Universe, as seen by the most powerful telescopes (even in theory), is huge, large and massive. Together with photons and neutrinos, it contains about 10^90 particles, crumpled and grouped together with hundreds of billions or trillions of galaxies. Each of these galaxies contains a trillion stars (on average), and they are spread out across space in a sphere about 92 billion light years in diameter, from our perspective.

But despite what intuition tells us, this does not mean that we are at the center of the finite Universe. In fact, all the evidence points to the exact opposite.

The reason that the Universe appears finite to us - the reason that we cannot see beyond a certain distance - is not that the Universe is finite, but rather that in its present state the Universe has existed for a certain time. You should know that the Universe is not constant in time and space, but has evolved from more uniform, hot and dense to cold, heterogeneous and blurry by the present time.

As a result, we have a rich Universe, replete with many generations of stars, an ultra-cold background of residual radiation, galaxies receding from us, and certain limits that limit our vision. These limits are set by the distance light has traveled since the Big Bang.

And this, as you understand, does not mean at all that there is nothing beyond the visible Universe. We have every reason to believe, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view, that beyond the visible there is much, and even an infinite amount, of the invisible.

Experimentally, we can measure several interesting quantities, including the spatial curvature of the Universe, its smoothness and uniformity in terms of temperature and density, and its evolution over time.

We have discovered that the Universe is relatively flat in space and relatively uniform in its volume, which extends beyond what we can see; perhaps our Universe enters into another Universe, extremely similar to ours, but stretching for hundreds of billions of light years in all directions, which we do not see.

However, in theory it is even more interesting. We can extrapolate the Big Bang back and go not even to its extremely hot, dense, expanding state, and not even to its infinitely hot and dense state, but even further - to the very first moments of its existence - to the phase that preceded the Big Bang.

This phase, the period of cosmological inflation, describes a phase of the Universe where, instead of a Universe filled with matter and radiation, there was a Universe filled with the energy inherent in space itself: a state that caused the Universe to expand exponentially. That is, the Universe did not expand gradually along with the leisurely passage of time, but two, four, six, eight times faster - the further from the center, the greater the progression.

Since this expansion occurred not only exponentially, but also very quickly, the “doubling” occurred with a periodicity of 10^-35 seconds. That is, as soon as 10^-34 seconds passed, the Universe was already 1000 times larger than its original size; another 10^-33 seconds - the Universe is already 10^30 times its original size; by the time 10^-32 seconds had passed, the Universe was 10^300 times its original size, and so on. The exponent is a powerful thing not because it is fast, but because it is persistent.

Obviously, the Universe did not always expand this way - we are here, inflation is over, the Big Bang took place. We can imagine inflation as a ball rolling downhill. As long as the ball is at the top of the hill, it rolls, albeit slowly, and inflation continues. When the ball rolls into the valley, inflation ends, the energy of space is converted into matter and radiation; the inflationary state flows into a hot Big Bang.

Before we get into what we don't know about inflation, it's worth saying what we do know about it. Inflation is not like a ball - which rolls along a classical field - but rather a wave propagating through time, like a quantum field.

This means that as time goes on, the more space is created in the process of inflation, and in some regions, from a position of probability, inflation ends, while in others it continues. The regions where inflation ends experience the Big Bang and witness the birth of the Universe, while the remaining regions continue to experience inflation.

As time passes, due to expansion dynamics, regions where inflation has ended never collide or interact; regions in which inflation continues push each other and interact. This is exactly what we expect to see, based on the known laws of physics and observable events that exist in our Universe, which will tell us about inflationary states. However, we don’t know some things, which gives rise to uncertainty and probabilities at the same time.

1. We don't know how long the inflationary state lasted before it ended and became the Big Bang. The universe may be not much smaller than the observable one, it may be many orders of magnitude larger, or even infinite.
2. We don't know whether the regions where inflation has ended will be the same or significantly different from ours. There is an assumption that there are (unknown) physical dynamics that bring fundamental constants into correspondence - the masses of particles, the strengths of fundamental interactions, the amount of dark energy - like those in our region. But there is also an assumption that in different regions with completed inflation there may be completely different universes with different types of physics and constants.
3. And if the universes are similar to each other from the point of view of physics, and the number of these universes is infinite, and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is absolutely correct, does this mean that there are parallel universes in which everything develops exactly the same as in ours, with the exception of one -a single tiny quantum event?

In short, could there be a universe like ours in which everything happened exactly the same, except for one tiny thing that dramatically changed the life of your alter ego in another universe?

• Where did you go to work abroad and not stay in the country?
• Where did you beat the robber, and not he you?
• Where did you give up your first kiss?
• Where did an event that determined life or death go differently?

It's incredible: perhaps there is a universe for every possible scenario. There is even a non-zero probability of the emergence of a universe exactly copying ours.

True, there are many reservations to allow this. First, the inflationary state had to last not only 13.8 billion years - as in our Universe - but for an unlimited amount of time. Why?

If the Universe expanded exponentially - not in the smallest fraction of a second, but over 13.8 billion years (4 x 10^17 seconds) - then we are talking about a gigantic space. That is, even if there are regions in which inflation has ended, most of the Universe will be represented by regions in which it continues.

So we'll be dealing with at least 10^10^50 universes that started out with initial conditions similar to our Universe. This is a gigantic number. And yet there are even larger numbers. For example, if we undertake to describe the possible probabilities of particle interaction.

There are 10^90 particles in each universe, and we need each of them to have the same 13.8 billion year interaction history as our universe to get an identical universe. For a universe with 10^90 particles with 10^10^50 possible variations of such a universe, each particle would need to interact with another for 13.8 billion years. The number you see above is simply 1000! (or (10^3)!), factorial 1000, describing the number of possible permutations of 1000 different particles at any given time. (10^3)! greater than (10^1000), something like 10^2477.

But there are not 1000 particles in the Universe, but 10^90. Every time two particles interact, there can be not just one result, but a whole quantum spectrum of results. It turns out there is a lot more than (10^90)! possible results of particle interactions in the Universe, and this number is many googolplexes times larger than an insignificant number like 10^10^50.

In other words, the number of possible interactions of particles in any Universe increases to infinity much faster than the number of possible Universes increases due to inflation.

Even if we put aside such moments that there can be an infinite number of values ​​of fundamental constants, particles and interactions, even if we put aside the problems of interpretation, they say, does the many-worlds interpretation describe our physical reality in principle, it all comes down to the fact that the number of possible development options is growing so fast - much faster than exponential - that unless inflation continues indefinitely, there are no parallel universes identical to ours.

The singularity theorem tells us that most likely the inflationary state could not continue indefinitely, but arose as a distant but finite point in the past. There are many universes - perhaps with different laws, perhaps not - but not enough to give us an alternative version of ourselves; the number of possible options grows too quickly compared to the rate at which possible universes arise.

What does this mean for us?

This means that you have no choice but to be in this Universe. Make decisions without regrets: do what you love, stand up for yourself, live life to the fullest. There are no longer any universes with other versions of you and no future other than the one you live for.