# Parallel Universes MAY Exist



## Whitestar (Oct 22, 2007)

Recently, an Oxford team led by Dr David Deutsch have proven at least mathmatically that parallel universes could exist. Here is the article:

*New Proof from Oxford: Parallel Universes Exist*
Posted by Rebecca Sato

Parallel universes aren’t just the stuff of sci-fi, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists. The breakthrough is being described as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".

The parallel universe theory was first proposed back in over half a century ago in 1950 by US physicist, Hugh Everett. The theory helps make sense of the many mysteries of quantum mechanics that have left scientists scratching their heads for decades. In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits off. For each possible alternative outcome, each one is played out in an alternate universe. The implication would mean that the number of alternative scenarios in every individual’s lives would be bizarrely and unfathomably endless.

Partly because the idea is so uncomfortably strange, it’s dismissed as sci-fi by many critics. But there are also many credible, respected proponents of the theory—a group that is continuously gaining new adherents as new research unveils new evidence. The new research stemming from Oxford now—for the first time—offers a mathematical answer that sweeps away one of the key objections to the controversial idea. Their research shows that Dr Everett, a Phd student at Princeton University back was indeed on the right track when he came up with his multiverse theory.

Dr Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California at Davis commented, "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."

According to quantum mechanics, nothing at the subatomic scale can really be said to exist until it is observed. Until then, particles occupy uncertain "superposition" states, in which they can have simultaneous "up" and "down" spins, or appear to be in different places at the same time. The mere act of observing somehow appears to "nail down" a particular state of reality. Scientists don’t yet have a perfect explanation for how it works, but that hasn’t changed the fact that the phenomenon appears to be real.

According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options, which is somewhat how the multiple universe theory can be explained.

The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.

The work has another very strange implication. The idea of parallel universes would apparently sidesteps one of the key complaints with time travel. Every since it was given serious credibility in 1949 by the great logician Kurt Godel, many eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes. An example would be the famous “grandfather paradox” where a time traveler goes back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place.

But if parallel worlds do exist, there is a way around these troublesome paradoxes. Deutsch argues that time travel shifts happen between different branches of reality. The mathematical breakthrough bolsters his claim that quantum theory does not forbid time travel. "It does sidestep it. You go into another universe," he said. But he admits that there will be a lot of work to do before we can manipulate space-time in a way that makes “hops” possible. While it may sound fanciful, Deutsch says that scientific research is making the theory sound much more believable.

"Many sci-fi authors suggested time travel paradoxes would be solved by parallel universes but in my work, that conclusion is deduced from quantum theory itself."

See link:

New Proof from Oxford: Parallel Universes Exist | The Daily Galaxy: News from Planet Earth & Beyond

While I find the notion of parallel universes fascinating, in reality I find them hard to swallow because if this "many worlds" scenario is true, this means that for every indeterminate quantum event, a new universe is created, meaning that means mass and energy is created ex nihlo, which would seem to violate some fundamental laws of science as we understand them. There is an incredibly large number of quantum events that occur every second. While the number is not infinite (though it is large), if a new universe is created every time such an event occurs, this is a lot of mass and energy that is being created out of nowhere, which is a violation of laws of energy of conservation. 

And while that article is interesting, it is not a "proof" that this is an actual description of the universe(s). It is just a model that yields what is observed - which makes it stronger than models that do not. Many concepts are modelled mathematically before they can be proved. The article, of course, overstates the case with the title. For example, the famous mathematician Kurt Godel calculated that one can travel on a round trip and return to your starting point in both space and time. Godel's equations involved a universe that is rotating or spinning uniformly. In such a universe, it turns out that one could in principle go back in time merely by traveling in a large circle in space. While this has been proven mathematically, it has also been proven that we do not live in a rotating universe, but rather in a universe that is constantly expanding. Proving something that exists mathematically is a completely different ballpark than proving it on an experimental level. Therefore, until I see experimental proof as oppose to mathematical proof that these parallel universes are real, I will write them off as fantasy.

Thoughts anyone?


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## Ursa major (Oct 22, 2007)

I share your doubts, Whitestar, although others, in another thread, explain that as each universe has nigh-on zero overall energy, this would not prevent the creation of new universes. (The thread is in Aspiring Writers: "'Parallel Worlds' by Michio Kaku".)

I think we have a basic problem: mathemetics can describe things which are not easily subject to other descriptions; the result is that we can envisage things no further than the limit of our visual and verbal imaginations, descriptions that fall far short of the mathemetics. It means we are left very short of tools that allow us to criticise the mathematical models.

I'm old enough to have been taught to use a slide rule. Unlike a calculator, this would give you the numerical answer but not the scale: if the answer was 1234, you had to estimate whether this was meant to be 12.34, 12340000 or .001234. This experience has left me with a certain scepticism when an equation seems to state "X is like this". But, as I've written above, where maths meets the fundamentals of the universe, we cannot truly do this, however hard we try. This can introduce doubts that may be unfounded, or concepts that may have no foundation in reality.


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## Soggyfox (Oct 22, 2007)

If this is true is there someone very much like me in this 'other' universe?

and can we meet up and swop odd socks, cos i bet he's got all my missing ones.


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## woodsman (Oct 22, 2007)

yeah I don't see that there can be 'versions@ of us in other universes, surely it will play out in a way unuique to that universe and probably end up totally different to us, with different evolution etc. humans may not even have evolved to exist.Or is this just me??????

And maths after all can be used to prove that 1=0 so.....


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## Nik (Oct 22, 2007)

My guess is most of those parallel realities will be like Feynman diagram 'loops' of all the possible paths of sub-atomic reactions...

You gotta 'integrate over infinity' to ensure energy conservation, then the wave function collapses and you get one (1) outcome...

So the 'many worlds' only exists for the span of quantum uncertainty...


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## Rawled Demha (Oct 22, 2007)

woodsman said:


> And maths after all can be used to prove that 1=0 so.....


 
flawed maths that is, so not maths at all. 

i reckon there is a multiverse. i object to the term "parallel universes" for the word universe means that there is only one. a parallel universe is an oxymoron, its like saying  a bicycle is a pair of unicycles. yes 2 unicycles have the same number of wheels as one bicycle, but they're not the same. 

im not sure what is the analogical equivalent of a wheel is for a plane of existence....

but anyway, yes, there is another version of all of us in existence. there are a couple of varying models of this though. you have the parallel version, where we have millions and billions and trillions of planes coexisting, in each of which there is another version of ourselves (unless we die in said plane), 

and you've got another model where its not parallel at all, but "next" to each other. in this one, the idea is that space is so big (infinitely big remember), that a very large distance away - around
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





metres you have another "bubble" in which you have an alternate existance, with alternates yous.

i myself, hold with the first idea, simply because it sounds better. having things coexist in the same space but on a different plane seems more satisfying than than having them coexist in infinite space.

ps. the first verse in the qur'an can be translated as "Praise God, Lord of all the Worlds". i've debated this with my brothers, and i believe this is an indication of parallel worlds. my older brothers claimed it meant planets and stars, and my younger brother mentioned how we all "live in our own worlds". funnily enough, i felt that if i was wrong, it would be my younger who was closer to the truth.


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## mosaix (Oct 22, 2007)

Soggyfox said:


> If this is true is there someone very much like me in this 'other' universe?
> 
> and can we meet up and swop odd socks, cos i bet he's got all my missing ones.



Soggyfox, there will be universes where you haven't got any socks at all and some where you've got three feet!


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## StewHotston (Oct 23, 2007)

hah, quantum physicist here...

well the problems with many-world interpretations of quantum phenomena are many and varied.

here are a couple.

1. If there are an infinite number of worlds how are they divided and at what point (this in itself contains many many issues that cann't be resolved mathematically)
2. Is the many worlds theory superior to the copenhagen theory in interpreting quantum phenomena?
3. Are less hidden variables required for this explanation than for competing interpretations and perhaps most importantly does the presence of variables and tweakable coefficients imply that any of the current explanations are actually flawed representations of reality?

Those are high level problems with this particular theory (although they do apply to each of the 6 general interpretations of quantum mechanics) but many worlds is simply speculative and ultimately nonsense in a realy sense as there is no access to it.

Finally many of these 'proofs' are coming out of an increasingly beleaguered string theory edifice that is invoking ever more speculative and wild theories and support structures as to why the experimental evidence demonstrates no inkling of string theory being true.

In my opinion there aren't many worlds (beyond the worlds we each inhabit) and if there are it's meaningless anyway.


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## StewHotston (Oct 23, 2007)

woodsman said:


> yeah I don't see that there can be 'versions@ of us in other universes, surely it will play out in a way unuique to that universe and probably end up totally different to us, with different evolution etc. humans may not even have evolved to exist.Or is this just me??????


 
the funny thing about infinities is that they are infinite so there would be an infinite number of universes IDENTICAL to this one, an infinite number of universes with just one molecule different, an infinite number of universes with two molecules different, an infinite number of universes identical to the infinite number of universes with just two molecules different etc etc etc.

This may sound like nonsense but it's the way it works.

And it's most definitely not like Sci-fi with each one having a nice unique flavour.


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## Whitestar (Oct 24, 2007)

StewHotston said:


> hah, quantum physicist here...
> 
> well the problems with many-world interpretations of quantum phenomena are many and varied.
> 
> ...



I agree. The fact is that it is hard to create an experiment to test quantum interperations (which basically explain why and how of quantum mechanics).

But experiments such as those by Cramer and Ashar seem to support the "Transaction " interperation which depends on pilot waves that travel from the future to the past. That being said, I would like to see a series of experiments that can support the many world interperation, if at all. 

In addition, even it turns out by some remote chance that parallel universes exists, the creation of whole new universes would still need to obey the laws of energy conservation. And here is a simple trick around that problem: the amount of positive energy in the form of photons and particles are balanced by the amount of negative energy in the form of gravity fields. Therefore, no energy is used in the creation of the universe. Thoughts?


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## chrispenycate (Oct 24, 2007)

Why should gravity be considered as energy, positive or negative? It does't come in the right units, the amount of work it can do is totally dependant on what it is acting on, it's not cancelling out when it "absorbs" other energy.
In fact, it shows no similarity with any of the force times distance or mass times the square of the velocity defined energies at all.
A magnetic field is not energy, though it can be used to generate some; why should a gravitational field be so considered?
There is potential infall energy if all the mass in the universe were to collapse into a primordal cosmegg for another go: but that more or less balances the kinetic energy of the expansion, not the total energy of the mass itself.
As far as I can see, defining gravity as a "negative energy" then assigning an arbitary equivalence so that the universe sums out neatly at zero is like introducing the correction constant, k, which is the difference between the right answer and the one I actually calculated – well, something has to explain away why the universe isn't following my equations.


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## StewHotston (Oct 24, 2007)

I think it's more appropriate to say no energy was created in the creation (or rather unfolding) of the universe. THe problem with that is nature abhors infinities and the problem with a singularity is that it is basically our way of saying we don't know what happens within/beyond it and it almost certainly isn't right despite the mathematics. Essentially any answer that gives infinity isn't going to exist within nature.

The tangent to this is that of irrational numbers which are technically infinite in elngth and which nature does love...but they are a different class of number and don't constitute numbers within the omega set.

Chrispenycate is correct about the problem with assigning gravity a 'negative' energy. However I would point out that the type of energy you're talking about is only mechanical and not the whole story by a long shot. e.g. a magnetic field is, by definition, a continuous energy field (think of it as being orthoganal to the magnetic force being experienced within it, and so has 'energy' if one wants to be pedantic - but it doesn't fit with the idea of assigning gravity, which is also a force, is misleading and liable to lead down some farily unproductive paths.

Chrispenycate - energy arises from the time-space of the universe and of all relations within it - hence gravitational energy etc. Your discussion is bounded by kinetic and potential, but these are mechanical energies that only make sense when considered within a single frame of reference and within the universe - it has no meaning to say the expansion of the universe is driven by kinetic energy nor does it make sense to say any collapse would result in an increase in potential energy (at least in the way you're talking about). 
In physics which is concerned with energy we use terms such as electronvolt and discuss multiples of the MASS of an electron as energies (amongst other terms). Wiki this - Planck Energy. Have fun


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## Rawled Demha (Oct 24, 2007)

Whitestar said:


> But experiments such as those by Cramer and Ashar seem to support the "Transaction " interperation which depends on pilot waves that travel from the future to the past. That being said, I would like to see a series of experiments that can support the many world interperation, if at all.


 
one of the tenets of MWI, is that no data can be transmitted between the worlds...im not sure, but i interpreted this as meaning,it cant be proved by direct experimentation, but only inference and theory - am i wrong?



Whitestar said:


> In addition, even it turns out by some remote chance that parallel universes exists, the creation of whole new universes would still need to obey the laws of energy conservation.


 
another of the tenets is that we have different fundamental laws of physics in these other worlds. would this require energy conservation to hold?



chrispenycate said:


> Why should gravity be considered as energy, positive or negative? It does't come in the right units, the amount of work it can do is totally dependant on what it is acting on, it's not cancelling out when it "absorbs" other energy.
> In fact, it shows no similarity with any of the force times distance or mass times the square of the velocity defined energies at all.
> A magnetic field is not energy, though it can be used to generate some; why should a gravitational field be so considered?
> There is potential infall energy if all the mass in the universe were to collapse into a primordal cosmegg for another go: but that more or less balances the kinetic energy of the expansion, not the total energy of the mass itself.
> As far as I can see, defining gravity as a "negative energy" then assigning an arbitary equivalence so that the universe sums out neatly at zero is like introducing the correction constant, k, which is the difference between the right answer and the one I actually calculated – well, something has to explain away why the universe isn't following my equations.


 
this is a problem i remember my peers at school struggling with, the actual concept of gravity. it all depends on what you mean when you're using the term gravity. i never heard gravity reliably described as a form of energy. it was more of a property, i thought, or maybe a phenomenon. energy only came into it when we considered work done by or against gravity.

the gravitational force was defined as negative because it is directed towards the source, and not away. vector definition has it that a direction towards any point of reference is negative, whereas a direction away from it is positive.

and with regards to the correction constant you mentioned, do you mean the scalar constant (* k) or ?translation? constant (+ k)? the +k is for families of solutions, which only vary by changing arbitrary conditions, and the *k is likewise for similar solutions, which vary proportionally by changing arbitrary factors.

for example, if you wanted to know what time a train would arrive, and you knew the journey time to be _x_ minutes. the +k would account for the time the train departed.

ps. i havent done any serious physics for a while now, so all of this may be rubbish. i think (*hope*) not though


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## StewHotston (Oct 24, 2007)

I refer you to my comments on gravity and terms for energy. One must avoid the idea of mechanical terminology at all costs at the risk of trying to scale Newtonian ideas to what are essentially concepts Newtonian mechanics cannot and is not equipped to deal with or even describe.

If you want to know more about gravity look up the Higgs Boson. I reiterate that analogues involving trains/planes and automobiles are utterly inadequate...


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## StewHotston (Oct 24, 2007)

a vector is a type of tensor and those come in many ranks plus the fact it has an assigned direction is the very problem with it. Not only that but please remember that all objects with mass (or energy associated with non-boson particles with a spin of 1) exert gravitational forces not just the ones that appear to dominate...


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## Rawled Demha (Oct 24, 2007)

StewHotston said:


> One must avoid the idea of mechanical terminology at all costs at the risk of trying to scale Newtonian ideas to what are essentially concepts Newtonian mechanics cannot and is not equipped to deal with or even describe.


 
ah yes.  sorry bout dat...


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## StewHotston (Oct 24, 2007)

no worries - it is one hell of difficult subject for finding language that is adequate to discuss it with


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## Phil Janes (Oct 25, 2007)

Given the undeniable results of double slit experiments, I am inclined to agree with some sort of multiverse type explanation. This is not the same as the sub-universes and super-universes of my Fractal Foam Model of Universes. If you haven’t read my blog on the subject, this is all going to sound like gibberish to you; so you may as well either skip the rest or read the blog first. 

There may be a clue to multiverses contained in my model. I think it has something to do with the fact that (according to the model) time reverses between successive universes in the infinite scale-wise sequence. In other words, as our universe gets older, the sub-universe is getting younger, and vice versa. There is an apparent causal connection between our universe and the sub-universe. Every force and particle in our universe is an effect of the p-waves (pressure waves) that are radiated outward from popping sub-universe cosmic-foam bubbles. Due to the time reversal, from our perspective, the p-waves converge and cause our ether-foam bubbles to un-pop. 

Every time we make a choice, we minutely alter course of countless p-waves. Since those p-waves are caused by the un-popping of ether-foam bubbles at some future time, we are changing the future before we get there. And since that future event in our ether foam is a past event in the sub-universe’s cosmic foam, we are altering the sub-universe’s past every time we make a choice in our present. 

I see two basic interpretations. Either our present choice determines which future will be realized for us, and which past has already occurred in the sub-universe, or our future is predestined, and we have no choice. I prefer to believe in freedom of choice. 

As for conserving energy, I see no contradiction. If all possible pasts, presents and futures exist, then our choices do not create new ones; we merely choose which of the infinite possibilities we will experience. I believe in an infinite scale-wise succession of universes, each of which is infinite in spacial expanse and perhaps also infinite in time. Infinity times infinity, or infinity to the infinite power, is still just infinity. So what’s the big deal about having infinite futures to choose from. 

It’s nice to think that, for every stupid choice I have made to get in the mess I’m in now, there was another me who made the smart choice and is now sipping _pina coladas_ on a tropical isle surrounded by adoring nubile nymphs. But the philosophical question of whether I have an infinite number of alter egos running around in parallel universes is of no practical consequence to me here and now. The only choices I need concern myself with are the ones I shall make today.


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## Rawled Demha (Oct 25, 2007)

Phil Janes said:


> But the philosophical question of whether I have an infinite number of alter egos running around in parallel universes is of no practical consequence to me here and now. The only choices I need concern myself with are the ones I shall make today.


 
tru. but the great thing about philosophy, is that its a waste of time.


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## StewHotston (Oct 26, 2007)

Phil, that's all very nice but the problewm with your model is it assumes the following - the human mind is at the centre of the universe. THis is problematic.
Furthermore it is almost insuperably problematic as soon as you allow for multiple minds and let's not even begin to introduce the fact that each of these multiple minds is finite...

Whilst maths can tell you much if one's starting assumptions are problematic then anything which grows from those axioms is liable to be problematic as well.


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## StewHotston (Oct 26, 2007)

nothing to see here.


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## Joel007 (Oct 26, 2007)

What we need to do is create a super-array of "observers" to keep the universe nailed down.

I wonder if they've discovered the parasite universes yet.


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## Phil Janes (Oct 26, 2007)

StewHotston said:


> ... it assumes the following - the human mind is at the centre of the universe....
> Furthermore it is almost insuperably problematic as soon as you allow for multiple minds and let's not even begin to introduce the fact that each of these multiple minds is finite....
> quote]
> 
> Each person's and each creature's action, at any given moment, plays a part in determining which of the possible futures we all shall realize.


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