For a long time, the theory of alternative realities seemed like a crazy idea of drunken physicists. Nowadays, scientists have begun to take it seriously.
Have you ever dreamed of being taller, smarter, richer? For sure. If scientists are right, then there are an infinite number of parallel universes. And in this infinity of space and time, the wildest dreams and terrible nightmares are played out.
This incredible idea, later called the theory of the multiverse, was proposed by a young talented graduate Hugh Everett III, who managed to look at quantum physics in a new way.
Quantum physics, pioneered by legendary scientist Max Planck, was believed to be applicable to subatomic particles such as electrons and quarks that make up the atoms of matter. At this submicroscopic level, an electron, for example, can exist in many places at the same time. But if a scientist measures his position, he will get one result, not several.
SHARES OF A SECOND
Although the "normal" world consists of such particles, it does not have the same properties as the subatomic world. Or does it have? Everett combined the laws of quantum physics with the world as we know it, suggesting that if there is a choice to get out of the situation, the universe branches out into alternative versions, playing out all possible outcomes.
The measurements offered by the scientist are just one of several possible results. And our Universe is just one of many versions. If you roll the dice and you get a three, there will be other universes where different versions of you will see different numbers.
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Everett's dissertation "Formulating Quantum Mechanics in Referenced States" (1957) earned him his doctorate and the disdain of the physicist community. However, science fiction writers like John Wyndham appreciated the potential of his idea. And scientists only after the untimely death of Everett drew attention to his theory, but it remained in oblivion for some time until the spacecraft discovered something strange at the edge of our universe.
A HOLE IN SPACE
In 2001, NASA launched the WMAP (Wilson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) to map the cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang, which most cosmologists believe brought space and time into existence. Based on the analysis of the relic radiation, scientists calculated the age of the universe and studied its initial structure. But this radiation revealed a huge void with a diameter of 1 billion light years, called the Relic Cold Spot. NASA was not ready for such a discovery.
Even stranger seems to be the coordinated motion of galaxy clusters discovered by cosmologist Sasha Kashlinsky and his colleagues at the Goddard Space Flight Center (Maryland, USA), which they called a dark stream. These clusters are racing in the same direction at an unexpectedly high speed, as if driven by a mystical force. Curiously, even the course of the WMAP probe has changed under the influence of an unknown anomalous force.
STRANGE SCIENCE
According to some cosmologists, including Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina, the reason is obvious. The relict cold spot and dark stream are "… undeniable traces of another universe beyond ours."
Of course, there are other explanations for these phenomena, but new discoveries are giving scientists more and more evidence for the so-called string theory. It assumes the existence of not only multiple universes, but also multiple dimensions in total 11. Hugh Everett's ideas no longer seem so strange.