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Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life.
Do we actually live in a multiverse? | Dr. Ethan Siegel
Big Think
37 minutes
4 days ago
Do we actually live in a multiverse? | Dr. Ethan Siegel
"Welcome to the multiverse. Or should I say our one universe within a multiverse of possibilities?"
Do we have proof of a multiverse?
Our idea of the multiverse stems from the notion of quantum mechanics: The idea that every time we enter a situation there are potentially infinite possibilities to arise as the outcome. But when we make a decision, we only get one of these outcomes.
Science fiction as well as our media and films are bewitched by the concept of the multiverse. But what can science tell us about its legitimacy? Dr. Ethan Siegel explores.
Chapters for easier navigation:-
0:00 Is there a multiverse?
3:32 The “many worlds” interpretation
4:43 The notion of infinity
8:45 Types of infinity
10:16 Degrees of freedom
17:01 Quantum mechanical spreading
19:22 The universe beyond our universe
21:46 How fast do universes get created?
27:15 The hope of the multiverse
The idea of the Multiverse suggests that every quantum possibility—every outcome that could happen—does happen, in a different universe. From choices we make to random atomic events, reality may split endlessly.
Cosmic inflation—a rapid expansion after the Big Bang—might have created countless "bubble universes." Each one with different physical laws or histories. These bubbles never touch, separated by ever-expanding space.
But here's the twist: Quantum mechanics produces a combinatoric explosion of outcomes—far more than the exponential growth from cosmic inflation. So, can the inflationary Multiverse actually contain all quantum possibilities?
Only if inflation has been going on forever, into the infinite past and future.
Otherwise, the full-blown sci-fi-style Multiverse? It's just in our minds.
About Ethan Siegel:
Ethan Siegel is a Ph.D. Astrophysicist and author of "Starts with a Bang!" He is a science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. He has won numerous awards for science writing since 2008 for his blog, including the award for best science blog by the Institute of Physics. His two books "Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive" and "Beyond the Galaxy: How humanity looked beyond our Milky Way and discovered the entire Universe" are available for purchase at Amazon.
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Big Think
Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life.
