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Parallel Universe

You’d be hard-pressed to find a sci-fi series that doesn’t

address the idea of parallel universes. Put aside the fact the number of story lines it offers sci-fi writers, just the idea that there could be an infinite number of you out there, living an infinite number of different outcomes, is particularly mind-blowing.

Even experts get caught up in the possibilities of it. Max Tegmark, a professor at MIT, said, “If I get a parking ticket, there is always a parallel universe where I didn’t. On the other hand, there is a yet another universe where my car is stolen.”

Without getting way deep into the weeds of astrophysics, Tegmark suggests there are four types or levels of parallel universe: Level 1 assumes space is infinite and that the physical laws of other universes are the same as ours but a duplicate of our world is too far away for us to connect with it. Level 2 suggests separate universes spring up like “bubbles of spacetime” going through their own form of expansion. The laws of physics in these universes could be different from our own and, again, it would be universes too far from us to connect with. Level 3 is the alternate or mirror universe we think of in science fiction, where each choice you make will affect your reality, but another reality may reflect a different choice. For example, if you’re at a restaurant and you’re deciding between steak or fish: If you choose steak in one reality, you’ll choose fish in another, and this will cascade into more divergent choices, and still more divergent choices. Level 4 is a parallel universe that suggests the mathematical equations and physical laws that govern these types of universe are completely different from our own.

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, explained multiple universe theory this way in his book Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions and the Future of the Cosmos:

“Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg likens this multiple universe theory to radio. All around you, there are hundreds of different radio waves being broadcast from distant stations. At any given instant, your office or car or living room is full of these radio waves. However, if you turn on a radio, you can listen to only one frequency at a time; these other frequencies have decohered and are no longer in phase with each other. Each station has a different energy, a different frequency. As a result, your radio can only be turned to one broadcast at a time.

“Likewise, in our universe we are ‘tuned’ into the frequency that corresponds to physical reality. But there are an infinite number of parallel realities coexisting with us in the same room, although we cannot ‘tune into’ them.”

Skeptics argue there’s too much “theory” still involved, that to prove it we must still follow the underlying laws of physics and that we must first discover “the law of laws” in order to understand it.

The idea of parallel universes opens up a Pandora’s box of questions, not only scientific but philosophical and spiritual. Who is to say what is possible and what isn’t? Kaku says, based on something called quantum theory, that “there is a probability that all possible events, no matter how fantastic or silly, may occur.” Human history has taught us this is true. How often in the past have humans absolutely believed something was impossible only to be proved wrong?

Having doubts? That doesn’t mean your alternative self doesn’t believe. SP