Part 1 of 5 - Parallel Universes - BBC Horizon

Everything you're about to read here seems impossible and insane, beyond science fiction. Yet it's all true.

Scientists now believe there may really be a parallel universe - in fact, there may be an infinite number of parallel universes, and we just happen to live in one of them. These other universes contain space, time and strange forms of exotic matter. Some of them may even contain you, in a slightly different form. Astonishingly, scientists believe that these parallel universes exist less than one millimetre away from us. In fact, our gravity is just a weak signal leaking out of another universe into ours.

In another universe, the British could win the American Civil WarThe same but different

For years parallel universes were a staple of the Twilight Zone. Science fiction writers loved to speculate on the possible other universes which might exist. In one, they said, Elvis Presley might still be alive or in another the British Empire might still be going strong. Serious scientists dismissed all this speculation as absurd. But now it seems the speculation wasn't absurd enough. Parallel universes really do exist and they are much stranger than even the science fiction writers dared to imagine.

Greater dimensions

It all started when superstring theory, hyperspace and dark matter made physicists realise that the three dimensions we thought described the Universe weren't enough. There are actually 11 dimensions. By the time they had finished they'd come to the conclusion that our Universe is just one bubble among an infinite number of membranous bubbles which ripple as they wobble through the eleventh dimension.

Each universe may exist as a bubble with its own laws of physicsA creative touch

Now imagine what might happen if two such bubble universes touched. Neil Turok from Cambridge, Burt Ovrut from the University of Pennsylvania and Paul Steinhardt from Princeton believe that has happened. The result? A very big bang indeed and a new universe was born - our Universe. The idea has shocked the scientific community; it turns the conventional Big Bang theory on its head. It may well be that the Big Bang wasn't really the beginning of everything after all. Time and space all existed before it. In fact Big Bangs may happen all the time.

Of course this extraordinary story about the origin of our Universe has one alarming implication. If a collision started our Universe, could it happen again? Anything is possible in this extra-dimensional cosmos. Perhaps out there in space there is another universe heading directly towards us - it may only be a matter of time before we collide.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• BBC
• Horizon
• Parallel
• Universe
• Galaxy
• Science
• Space
• Planets
• Reality
• Alternate

[digitalvei]

Damn I'm watching Fringe too much.. >.<

[ramon709]

I am the ruler of the world in one of those parallel dimensions.

[soulmman]

..What? Did I just see Dr. Michio Kaku ice-skating?

[ramon709]

@flyingcowzz As there are countless parallel worlds and universes according to the theory everything that can happen will happen in one of those realities. In many I don't exist or even mankind itself does not exist. But I am now just quoting what is said in this documentary :)

[Miquinn2016]

Really, a string theory. Can anyone be more stupid than to think of that. It makes sense with quantum physics and being in many places at once, but how much/ many of your particles are in those given " strings". The big bang didn't result from strings. If we could just tap into quantum physics for a moment and just forget the formulas we might actually get a starting point. If a black hole really did make the universe, we have to find out the center of "our" universe and see if a black hole mad

[flyingcowzz]

@ramon709 if there were parallel dimensions would you even be existing? since the dimensions probably started splitting a long long time ago since the starting of time and different events might have happened to have caused you not to have been born

[twinky647]

Is it just me or does it seem like the scientist is in the middle of saying 'Fuck' in the video still shot?

[asubjectiveopinion]

I wish I lived in the one where Ken Campbell got the Doctor Who gig,

[bloodhoof66]

ever scince i was a little kid i just assumed there were other dimensions.its how my brain is.

[MadOldPete]

@ramon709 More than one, in fact. And in another one, I'm afraid I'm smearing shit all over your clothes. I can only apologize.

[akonamanliwat]

@digitalvei Fringe brought me here too. :D

[starwarsfreak707]

@SuperBluebop i was thinking something like that as well.