Can Marvel Studios’ Multiverse really exist? A physicist explains

So, is there any scientific backing for this fantasy? Although some physicists have suggested that our universe may be just one fact among many, others say this is only speculation.

Sabine Hussienfelder, a German theoretical physicist, had an interesting opinion about the multiverse. In a video posted in 2019 on her YouTube channel, she said that “belief in the concept of the multiverse is logically equivalent to belief in God. So it is a religion, not a science.” She explains that science doesn’t tell us anything about universes that we can’t observe.

To understand more about this topic, indianexpress spoke to Dr Kinjalk Lochan, assistant professor of physics at IISER Mohali, who specializes in the fields of general relativity, black holes, and the early universe.

Most physicists say the concept of the multiverse is speculation or science fiction. So, why do some think it might even exist?

Let me infuse some optimism for the sake of the discussion, without committing to being pro-concept. With the advent of quantum mechanics, a brilliant idea arose – that it is inconceivably difficult to completely rule out something. Each process has some probability of occurrence – low or high – but it is rarely zero.

Everything we normally see, learn and understand is based on the experiences we have – experiences gained on the scale (size and energy) in which we normally live. There is usually a well-understood flow of events from which we draw some conclusions according to reasoning. For example, if someone was standing in front of me, I would conclude that they are nowhere else at that time.

At the microscopic level, however, two or more realities may coexist – for example, an electron may live simultaneously “here” and “there” (proven by experiments). The famous Schrödinger cat example shows that a cat can be both dead and alive if combined with a microscopic particle “here” or “there” either kills or saves the cat.

this week #SpiderManNowWayHome It will arrive, and it will display a file # Multiple! Want to discover some real thing #physics behind the # Multiple? Check out my latest #Youtube The video where I look at # schrodingerCat and many theory world.

📺 https://t.co/aq50reNrBA pic.twitter.com/J1tKhEIpFM

– Barry W. Fitzgerald (@BarryWScience) December 13, 2021

These concepts lead to the idea (speculation if you like to call it that) that when the universe was born, it was also a microscopic entity. Hence, he must have also had a million coexistence possibilities. The question is what happened to those other possibilities? Did they fade out in favor of the one we see or do they all really get along? I dare say we don’t know for sure.

Are there scientific papers published on this concept?

The idea has been around for many years in one form or another. Some believe this idea has its roots in the famous paper On Many Universal Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics by Hugh Everett III (1957) in which he suggested that quantum systems do not collapse on a single reality but continue to live with different “worlds” that capture a different perception.

Similar ideas later appeared in various forms in terms of the existence of ‘vacua’ (primary seeds of the universe) in theories such as chaotic inflation, string theory, and others.

It seems that many famous scholars such as Leonard Susskind and Andrei Linde attest to its existence.

If we are in a multiverse, shouldn’t different universes interact? Don’t we see some effect?

This is a very relevant question and there is no clear and acceptable answer for everyone. We know that microscopic systems simultaneously live all the facts and those facts actually interact – and interference is a buzzword for that.

However, somehow, as systems get older, the interference disappears because we don’t see it in our daily lives – perhaps through a mechanism called decoherence.

It is not theoretically clear whether the multiverse’s many worlds, if any, have been sufficiently corrupted (undergoed decoherence) as the universe expanded and grew.

Could advances in LIGO, Webb, or later help shed light on this question?

Scientific mandates for advanced experimental proposals that are now running or proposed in the near future are not for testing the multiverse. They are meticulously designed to perform experiments that shed light on some unknown aspects of scientific inquiry within this universe.

This was an interesting interview about # Multiple Things, for those interested casually…. #physics https://t.co/oXt2CUY2W3

– Clifford Johnson (asymptotia) November 3, 2021

Having said that, such experimental operations often get some spurious signals, something you weren’t looking for, and thus open up other possibilities. However, I don’t imagine that people would be drawn into a “multiverse interpretation” of any of them very easily as there are still many things within our universe that need a proper understanding.

I read that the Copernican principle shows that a multiverse is possible. Is this correct?

The Copernican principle suggests that there is no special position or framework in the universe, including the position of the Earth. So there is no special case miraculously happened on Earth to preserve life or science as we know it.

Our position is pretty average in the comic scene and there’s plenty of room that very similar conditions prevail in other locations as well. For example, in a classroom, many students will be found with scores close to average and very few further away from it.

This, in and of itself, is not related to the idea of ​​a multiverse but one could extend the argument to microscopic formations to ask whether the occurrence of our universe is a private matter? Is our being a miraculous entity or just an ordinary entity like so many others? This is just an extension of the initial argument.

Can you explain what string theory is? Does it explain the existence of a parallel universe?

String theory is a theoretical framework. It was initially envisaged to unite all known forces of nature into one, in terms of a new fundamental entity – threads.

This uniformity requires that there must be more than four dimensions (the three spatial dimensions and the one-time dimension) that we perceive, which are merely a manifestation of the low energy of the big picture.

Picture it this way – if you see a mural at close range, you’ll see only a small part of it. To see the full picture you have to zoom out, but “zooming out” in the case of string theory needs very high power.

Interesting, in many respects, this leads to the question: Can we achieve different perceptions of different 3 + 1 dimensions at lower power?

Moving forward with the painting analogy, if you start getting closer to the board, what is the guarantee that you will end up focusing on the same spot every time? There’s always a chance that you’ll end up on a different part of the board next time.

Likewise, you might end up with a different 3+1 dimensional space on each low-power drain. If so, can many coexist? Do they constitute a multiverse? Many believe that this is a possibility.