This story is a part of our Cosmic Perspective sequence, wherein we confront the staggering vastness of the cosmos and our place in it. Learn the remainder of the sequence right here.

We expect our universe comprises the whole lot that exists, has ever existed and can exist sooner or later. However this may not be the case: there are lots of methods different universes may exist.

One is that we may very well be a single a part of a department of infinite universes recognized collectively because the multiverse. These universes might need appeared shortly after the massive bang, they may be hiding in additional dimensions or they might pop into existence each time a quantum property goes from a cloud of attainable states to a single actuality.

Multiverse concepts gained scientific weight within the Eighties with the invention of inflation, a interval when the early universe instantly expanded. Inflation explains why the cosmos is so flat and easy, but it surely additionally predicts the creation of a large number of impartial bubble universes.

Cyclic universes

But inflation is only one path to a multiverse, and it has its critics. Lately, many cosmologists have turned to alternate options like cyclic universe theories, which say the universe is on an endless cycle between ballooning and compressing. These theories nonetheless invoke a number of universes, however at completely different occasions.

“What I didn’t like about inflation was that there are only a few real predictions – you don’t get out rather more than you place in,” says Neil Turok, a physicist on the College of Edinburgh, UK, who…