LMR-072 · Cosmology
Multiverse
Maybe ours is one bubble in a foam of universes.
§ A first look
§ Depths
Six ways into the same idea — from bedtime story to chalkboard. No order required.
L1 · Crayon
Told like a bedtime story.
For a curious 10-year-old. No jargon. Just a picture in your head.
We usually use 'universe' to mean 'everything that exists.' But some scientists wonder: what if our universe is just one bubble — one entire enormous everything — and there are other bubbles too, with their own stars and their own rules and their own histories, that we have no way to reach or even see from inside ours? The whole collection of bubbles would be called a multiverse. Nobody has proved it. It's an idea that pops up independently in three completely different big theories, which is suspicious. Could be true. Could be physics's group hallucination. Verdict pending forever, possibly.
§ Strange but true
- 01Several theories — inflation, quantum mechanics, string theory — independently suggest other universes exist.
- 02We probably can't ever visit one or test for them. They might be permanently behind the curtain.
- 03If the multiverse is real, somewhere out there is a universe identical to this one — except you ordered the other thing for lunch.
§ From the field journal
Multiverse
"Maybe ours is one bubble in a foam of universes."
— observed, sketched, not yet fully understood.
§ Nearby