Part 4 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

[wazziboy]

@DieserBenuterIstCool It's very easy. There is no begining and there is no end. Something have always been there. As we all know, we cant make anything out of nothing. All material is constant, things are just shifting shape or what ever you wanna call it.And time is just something humans have invented. Of course the univers have a beginning, but there was something before that, and before that and so on. I dont know if the univers will end or if it is eternal but something will always be there.

[DieserBenuterIstCool]

So then how does one explain the beginning of the other parallel universes? Again, we are confronted with the same dillemma: how did every thing BEGIN????

[Did007z]

who created stings, the membranes, time and the dimensions? Ex nihilo

[Ownageking75]

@DieserBenuterIstCool that is too mind boggling for humans to ever understand

[Flextaa]

@Sinekyre14 lol i just got that.

[Flextaa]

@brendanraymond I agree, it is waaay too simplified a bit of equations and how they work would be good.

[Sinekyre14]

Three physicists, one train...

Do yourself a favor, don't google it >_<.

[nick4161999]

@wazziboy i think your point of view is good but just think about it nothing can be just there it had a beginning maybe not an a end but it certainly had a beginning.

[brendanraymond]

This doco isn't explaining anything. It doesn't explain any "hows" or "whys". We arn't stupid and have attention spans longer than mice. We don't need fancy graphics or sounds or over simplified explenations that leave more questions than answers... I want to know the proper (non BBC) version of the theory. Anyone have any links to a lecture or something?

[Cardohh138]

Three Physicists One Train



[LanaLBenson]

@DieserBenuterIstCool Why does there even have to be a "beginning", or an "ending"?

[MCkillerG050]

@wazziboy how about somehow a creator made space and time including matter in it and we simply cannot understand that because the creator actually is nothing because he created everything. it will not be affected by time cause it created that, will not be anywhere because it created ''somewhere''(space) and will not be anything because it created matter and we just cannot understand what that nothing is because all for all we know if it isn't something it doesn't exist. and it doesn't.