Infinite Earths in Parallel Universes

[JacKDynne]

Some really interesting reading over at the Scientific American website, go expand your mind

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...A5809EC5880000

There is another you out there...along with pretty much anything else you can imagine I think Robert Heinlein touched on this in "The Number of the Beast"

Enjoy and discuss here if so inclined.



/JD

[rikytik]

I read that amazing article and was amused because I had just watched a corny Jet Li film about how he zaps around the multi-universe killing all his "other selves" to pick up personal power.

Goes along with the ideas that come from Quantum Theory. An interesting read is Schrödingers Cat which I picked up after reading the hit novel Timeline by Michael Chrichton which has enough Quantum Theory concept in it to whet the appitite for the QT newbie.

Fascinating stuff. Somewhere there is a "me" that didn't make the mistakes I made, be interesting to see how "he" (or they) made out.

[M31]

I think that you have to apply plenty of irrational logic to ideas such as parrelel universes (the fifth dimension), time travel et al.

I cannot understand how eminent thinkers none less than the Lucasian Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge Stephen Hawking promote such proposterous ideas as time travel. How could it be possible to replace 'every single particle in the universe to a previous state and exact place'. The simple answer it isn't and books on the subject should go into the science-fiction section.

I won't elaborate on my equally sceptical view of a parrelel universe other than to say when I went to a seminar on this while I was a student at Oxford the speaker opened up with the line "Just imagine Elvis is alive and well in a parrelel universe to ours somewhere......."

Nuff said.

[Zone-MR]

For a while I was skeptical of this, but the more I think of it, it only seems logical.

If we believe space is infinitely large, it would make sense that there are infinitely many planets, infinitely many galaxies, and in theory there could be an infinite amount of universes. I find this easier to believe than the theory that our universe exists, and then nothing but an infinite amount of empty space.

Now if we assume that there is an infinite amount of planets out there, there will be an infinite number of planets where certain events took place - no matter how unlikely those events are, as long as its POSSIBLE for something to happen, given infinity chances, it will happen.

I don't find it that difficult to believe that somewhere out there, there are planets where a series of events happened which is almost identical, or even identical to what happened here on earth. If there were a few billion planets, the probability of that happening would be negligible, but seeing as there is no finite number of planets, even events with a negligible probability will happen.

There could be places which are identical to where I am at the moment, with identical people. There could be an infinite number of them. As the article states, every single possible permutation of events will be played out an infinite number of times. Obviously I don't think for a second it will ever be possible to locate a parallel planet, universe, person, whatever - I'm just saying that its not a far-fetched theory but simple probability that they should exist.

[JacKDynne]

Quote:

as long as its POSSIBLE for something to happen, given infinity chances, it will happen.

That's what I think as well (at least in this universe ) I once heard or read somewhere that if you took a handful of chimpanzees and set them down in front of typewriters and let them blast away, eventually you would have every single novel written by humankind (provided they either live forever or mate and have their offspring take over).

It is really not that far fetched to find a way to hop between the realities, we just have to figure out a way to eliminate all other probablities except the one we want

Anything is possible, however probable is another matter

Mathematics IS magic, just wish my aptitude for it was greater

/me heads back to the books, they are very stimulating

/JD

[rikytik]

Science has often been shown to be restricted by conventional thinking. Witness the medical profession which resisted all the great discoveries. Great thinkers were sometimes put to death because their ideas went beyond conventional thinking.

Our world is basically unpredictable and "man" likes to feel secure. Thus the origin of all our superstitions and all our sturctured religions--all designed to create stabllity and predictablility.

Our history has shown that "man" can attain whatever he can imagine. Dick Tracey, Voyage to the Moon, Buck Rogers, Jules Verne, et.

We've yet to discover a lot of realities or even to understand our environment. These seemingly far out concepts and ideas are a beginning.