Are Alternate Universes Real?

The multiverse – CREDIT: Digital Vision/Howstuffworks

By: Shrey Sharma, Reporter

The theory of the birth of the universe starts with a single, cataclysmic event: The Big Bang. According to scientists, the universe started out as an extremely dense point in oblivion. Every single speck of energy in the entire universe was crammed into an extremely tiny point. This tiny, extremely dense point erupted with a force of about 950000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 megatons of TNT. That’s a lot of energy! This explosion formulated matter, and propelled it outwards, creating billions of new galaxies. To this day, the universe is still expanding.

But what lies ahead of the Observable universe? Is there just a black abyss of nothingness? Or are there entirely different universes, which can be similar or different to our own?

The Multiverse is the idea that our universe is just a fragment a bigger entity. This larger structure is essentially an enormous universe, which encompasses smaller universes that may or may not be similar to our own.

However, while you might think that this sounds like something straight from a sci-fi movie, there are some theories that my actually be plausible.

One such theory is the Infinite Universes theory. Scientists agree that it is most likely that the universe is flat, as opposed to spherical or cube-shaped. It is also agreed upon that the universe extends indefinitely. However, because there is only a finite number of ways that particles can be arranged, space-time must start repeating itself at some point. That point might be an unimaginable distance away, but according to this theory, it must exist. Therefore, theoretically, there are infinite versions of you somewhere in space-time.

Another theory would be the Daughter Universes theory. This theory delves into the depths of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics deals with the world in terms of probability, an not definite outcomes. The mathematic formulations of this theory could quite possibly suggest that all probable outcomes of an event do indeed occur – in completely different universes. The Daughter Universes theory states that for every decision, there is a universe where every single outcome of that decision had happened. For example, according to this theory, there is a universe where you wore a different shirt this morning. While this might be a small change, there could also be way bigger changes, like Hitler winning World War II.

If you think about it, given a few parameters, you could almost certainly say that the multiverse is real. For example, if we know for sure that the universe and space time continue on infinitely, we can comfortably say that the infinite universes theory is real. Additionally, our universe and others like it live in the realm of quantum physics, then the Daughter Universes theory will also be proven correct. So while we currently can’t be sure if the multiverse theory is real, we might not have to wait that long to find out.