babyliyi November 28, 2012 at 06:25
The artcile’s depiction of the multiverse hypothesis is unfortunately contrived and confused.
The multiverse lends credence to theories of chaotic inflation and d-brane cosmology (M-theory), where it is postulated that different physical laws emerge for every bubble universe.
Unfortunately, the author confused these with the outdated many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics, which is used by theorists 4 decades ago as candidate to explain away “wave function collapse”.
MWI postulates that the universe splits itself every time a particle interact with another.
MWI is one of dozens of interpretations of QM that are not just outdated but also inconsistent with each other as they try to wrestle with QM’s philosophical implications.
The scientific community in general consider MWI and other “interpretations” that try to philosophize QM as pseudo-science. Empirical evidence show via probability amplitudes that quantum events don’t have equal probabilities (In MWI, events have equal probabilities = 1 as they split into new universes).
Decoherence (derivative of Coppenhagen interpretation) and not MWI is considered as the de facto legitimate approach to understanding QM.
Chaotic inflation and d-brane cosmology, on the other hand, should not be contrived with MWI, as they are subject of valid academic research and not just mere philosophy like how MWI is.
These theories are inconsistent with MWI since they propose universes that have different laws and NOT a multiverse where all possibilities are realized.
In MWI, universes branch (and is dependent) from other universes.
In chaotic iinflation, universes emerge from the quantum vacuum indepent from other universes.
In 2011, the nobel prize for physics was awarded for the discovery that the universe has a positive cosmological constant (deSitter space) and it is already proven that deSitter space have a fixed space-time boundary, which means that the multi-verse, even if true, have a finite beginning in time (Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, proponents of inflationary theory).
As consequence, there are no infinite number of bubble universes springing from an infinite past.
In d-brane cosmology, infinite universes are prohibited since there is an exchange of gravitons for every d-brane containing a universe. An inifinte number of d-branes would result to the multiverse’s collapse due to gravitation.
The author however seems to be a fan of multiverse hype commonly shown but loosely explained in cable TV, youtube and blogs, which philosophize the theory beyond their scientific scope.
This article is a good example of how multi-verse theories are misunderstood, misused and abused.
