Science and Faith in the Murky Multiverse

Reprinted from the January 2005 issue of Science & Theology News. Used with permission.

If you've ever had a phenomenally bad day and wished that maybe there were a version of reality where all of your wrong turns, missteps and poor judgment calls righted themselves, congratulations! You've joined a community of scientists, philosophers and theologians who have long speculated that the universe we know isn't the only game in town.

To most people, the concept of multiple universes - or the "multiverse," as it has come to be known - conjures images of better places where prettier versions of themselves amass the wealth, power and fame that eludes them in this world. And who can blame them? Some of the most entertaining science fiction is built on this idea. But fans may be disappointed to learn that the idea that proved such an effective device in television series like Star Trek and Sliders is actually a misrepresented oversimplification of an issue scientists have been wrestling with for decades.

But take heart, stalwart Trekkers. The real thinking behind the concept of multiple universes is boldly taking physics, cosmology, religion and philosophy where no one has gone before.

The big bang's bigger meaning
British author Michael Moorcock introduced the general public to the term "multiverse" in a short story called "The Sundered Worlds," printed in a 1962 issue of Science Fiction Adventures. But the idea of multiple universes had been bandied about, in one form or another, as early as the 16th century.

It was 1576 when British astronomer Thomas Digges modified Copernicus' idea of the universe. What Copernicus thought was a clearly defined "outer rim," said Digges, was really unbounded space filled with stars stretching infinitely in every direction. Though Digges couldn't have known it at the time, a big-bang explosion started our universe in motion and, in doing so, produced cosmic microwaves. As Digges peered into the sky, these rays were traveling through that unbounded space; their detection confirmed the big-bang theory and earned Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The radiation led physicists to believe that space is expanding and that matter is spread more or less randomly through it. In the 1980s, Alan Guth at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Andrei Linde at Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow came up with the idea that the universe ballooned in a rapid burst soon after the big bang, and that burst exponentially increased the size of the universe. This new theory of "inflation" set the stage for modern multiverse theory.

Inflation creates what physicists call a "false vacuum," a fancy name for "bubble." If inflation created the bubble we know as our universe, who's to say it didn't create others in the same way? There may be an infinite number of universes co-existing with the bubble that is our universe.

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