Parallel Universes
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When I was younger, most things in science, especially in astronomy, seemed to be known, and it was just a case of filling in the details and collecting more data.
But instead of clearing up the little discrepancies as time passed, more and more were discovered, things that don't fit with current theories. In fact we now have a situation where we don't know what most of the universe is made of!. I suppose it's progress that these things are now talked about rather than being swept under the carpet.
So I'll worry about other universes, and whether or not they are accessible to us, when we've finally figured this one out!
"There are more questions than answers", in the words of the song.
But instead of clearing up the little discrepancies as time passed, more and more were discovered, things that don't fit with current theories. In fact we now have a situation where we don't know what most of the universe is made of!. I suppose it's progress that these things are now talked about rather than being swept under the carpet.
So I'll worry about other universes, and whether or not they are accessible to us, when we've finally figured this one out!
"There are more questions than answers", in the words of the song.
There is a simple high school experiment using a laser beam and various filters, which some people believe proves the existance of parralel universe's. I'll leave it to someone who actually knows what they are talking about to explain the experiment.
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Anonymous
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One (*extremely* dangerous, and I do *not* recommend it) method which would at least provide you with extremely strong evidence for these parallel universes is:
Get a gun
Put it to your head as if you were going to shoot yourself
and then shoot yourself
If every possible quantum state exists in a parallel universe, then you will survive as there is a tiny probability of a quantum event preventing your death (though there would be an infinite number of you that don't make it.)
If you don't survive, then the possible existance of parallel universes won't be much of a concern.
(I think that I found this method in New Scientist some time back.)
Get a gun
Put it to your head as if you were going to shoot yourself
and then shoot yourself
If every possible quantum state exists in a parallel universe, then you will survive as there is a tiny probability of a quantum event preventing your death (though there would be an infinite number of you that don't make it.)
If you don't survive, then the possible existance of parallel universes won't be much of a concern.
(I think that I found this method in New Scientist some time back.)
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Anonymous
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Fortis said:If every possible quantum state exists in a parallel universe, then you will survive as there is a tiny probability of a quantum event preventing your death (though there would be an infinite number of you that don't make it.)
If you don't survive, then the possible existance of parallel universes won't be much of a concern.
(I think that I found this method in New Scientist some time back.)
The way I understand it is the theory is that a new universe is formed for every possible quantum event. Therefore if you do that "experiment" you better hope and pray you end up in the universe where the gun jams.
Of course, even if you do live, all you really prove is that you were a lucky SOB.
Also, never say never.
We probably would never (whoops) be able to detect multi-unis (if they do exist) with our current knowledge and abilities to explore our universe, but who knows what knowledge future discoveries bring us?
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Anonymous
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This week's Horizon is about Parallel Universes - BBC2, 9pm, Thursday 14th Feb. (Thanks to Ideasman for telling me about it before the event instead of watching me kick myself the day after for missing it.) I'll be watching - I actually believe that such things exist, I just don't understand the quantum wotsits. 
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Anonymous
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Fizz, look into Schrodinger's Cat (the actual paradox, not the book (although you can if you want )). (Very) long story short, Schrodinger created a paradox to point out a flaw in quantum physics. Some of the theories to explain the paradox involve multiple universes.
)). (Very) long story short, Schrodinger created a paradox to point out a flaw in quantum physics. Some of the theories to explain the paradox involve multiple universes.I thought that experiment showed that light could behave as either a wave or stream of discrete photons - both outcomes being "obvious" depending on the setup, or something... (ouch... head hurts!). Could be a different experiment of course - do you have any further details, JurekB?
I'll also leave further explanation for the less cerebrally challanged
Jane.
PS I'll have to remember to set this as a Friday night quiz question - who won Nobel prizes for 1. proving that light propogates as a wave and 2. proving that it doesn't?
Oh, and thanks to Fizz and Ideasman for the Horizon tip - I will remember to watch it, I will!
Oh dear, here we go.
As I remember it, a beam of light is passed through a piece of card with 3 slits in it. Then as one would expect, 3 parallel lines of light are projected onto another piece of card behind the one with the slits in it.
Filters are then placed in the path of the beam which only allow 1 photon at a time to pass through the card with the slits in it. Therefore, one would expect only 1 line to be projected, however 3 lines still appear on the card.
Apparently no one can understand why this happens when it obviously shouldn't, which has led some people to speculate that there is a parallel universe which is interacting with our own universe and thus creating the extra parallel lines.
Phew, I think thats about it but I welcome any corrections. This is quite a famous experiment and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Horizon mention it on Thursday.
As I remember it, a beam of light is passed through a piece of card with 3 slits in it. Then as one would expect, 3 parallel lines of light are projected onto another piece of card behind the one with the slits in it.
Filters are then placed in the path of the beam which only allow 1 photon at a time to pass through the card with the slits in it. Therefore, one would expect only 1 line to be projected, however 3 lines still appear on the card.
Apparently no one can understand why this happens when it obviously shouldn't, which has led some people to speculate that there is a parallel universe which is interacting with our own universe and thus creating the extra parallel lines.
Phew, I think thats about it but I welcome any corrections. This is quite a famous experiment and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Horizon mention it on Thursday.
The interesting one is the dual slit experiment. Use a beam of photons and you get a lovely set of interference fringes where the photon waves interact on the target screen
Set it up so you fire one photon at a time through the slits and have a detector that can find out which slit the photon passes through. Fine, you detect that all the photons only go through one slit or the other and hit the target but only in a direct line with the slit they pass through. The photons acts like a particals.
Now switch off the detector at the slits and and repeat, remember only one photon is in the path between the emitter and the screen at any one time. Record the places on the screen where photons hit and over time you build up a set of interference fringes. The photons are acting like waves interacting with photons already absorbed or yet to be emitted.
"Aha," you say, "the detector at the slit is collapsing the wave function of the photon, forcing it to act like a partical," (whatever that means)
Good try but no cigar, did I mention that the detector is only put on one of the slits if there is a photon strike and you haven't detected it it must have passed through the other slit whilst the detector is on the undetected photons act as a particals.
There's peculiar, there's weird, there's spooky - and then there is Quantum Mechanics.
Set it up so you fire one photon at a time through the slits and have a detector that can find out which slit the photon passes through. Fine, you detect that all the photons only go through one slit or the other and hit the target but only in a direct line with the slit they pass through. The photons acts like a particals.
Now switch off the detector at the slits and and repeat, remember only one photon is in the path between the emitter and the screen at any one time. Record the places on the screen where photons hit and over time you build up a set of interference fringes. The photons are acting like waves interacting with photons already absorbed or yet to be emitted.
"Aha," you say, "the detector at the slit is collapsing the wave function of the photon, forcing it to act like a partical," (whatever that means)
Good try but no cigar, did I mention that the detector is only put on one of the slits if there is a photon strike and you haven't detected it it must have passed through the other slit whilst the detector is on the undetected photons act as a particals.
There's peculiar, there's weird, there's spooky - and then there is Quantum Mechanics.
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Somebody(Richard Feynman?) once said:
"If quantum mechanics doesn't scare you, then you haven't understood it."
(The experiment being discussed above is the two-slits experiment, used to demonstrate wave-particle duality, but as an indication of parallel universes? - no, I think not.)
"If quantum mechanics doesn't scare you, then you haven't understood it."
(The experiment being discussed above is the two-slits experiment, used to demonstrate wave-particle duality, but as an indication of parallel universes? - no, I think not.)
I think the argument runs something like - how does the photon *know* if the detector is switched on or off when it passes through the non-detecting slit? As no one (?) would argue that photons are alive, both wave and partical results happen.rynner said:
There is a also way of carrying out the experiment (using spin polarisation?) where detection happens at the target. If set up to detect the polarisation(?) of the arriving photons you get a partical result, if only set up to detect position you get wave ie there is nothing at the slits that will *set* the photon into a particular form.
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Parallel Universes - reminder
Just a reminder that the subject of tonight's Horizon is Parallel Universes.
9pm, BBC2.
Set your videos NOW!
Just a reminder that the subject of tonight's Horizon is Parallel Universes.
9pm, BBC2.
Set your videos NOW!
JamesWhitehead
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I am watching the Horizon programme now and am duly mesmerized
by the ability of TV to accompany impossible concepts with impossible
graphics. Knowing the wavelength of graphic artists, I bet they were
having a massive camp seizure!
But it all makes sense. To someone, I guess.
I want to meet the me that didn't die of confusion in 2002.
by the ability of TV to accompany impossible concepts with impossible
graphics. Knowing the wavelength of graphic artists, I bet they were
having a massive camp seizure!
But it all makes sense. To someone, I guess.
I want to meet the me that didn't die of confusion in 2002.
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JW, I agree about the standard of presentation on Horizon nowadays.
It seems that after well over a century of work by photographers, technicians, scientists, and many other experts, to produce means of producing still and moving pictures of remarkable clarity and colour, the BBC hands over the production of their programs to people just a few months out of Art School, who then proceed to blur, slur, miscolour, jerk, and twitch the pictures, and can't even get their horizons level.
Some sort of parable there, perhaps, wonky horizons on Horizon, but I've been on rynner's ruin so don't feel able to expand on it at present....
At least they omitted any comment on 'Brane Storms' - or did I miss that bit?
It seems that after well over a century of work by photographers, technicians, scientists, and many other experts, to produce means of producing still and moving pictures of remarkable clarity and colour, the BBC hands over the production of their programs to people just a few months out of Art School, who then proceed to blur, slur, miscolour, jerk, and twitch the pictures, and can't even get their horizons level.
Some sort of parable there, perhaps, wonky horizons on Horizon, but I've been on rynner's ruin so don't feel able to expand on it at present....
At least they omitted any comment on 'Brane Storms' - or did I miss that bit?
I forgot about the Horizon programme , but maybe in an alternative universe I watched it, understood it, and wasn't irritated by the crappy "hey, look at me - I can hold a camera at an angle!" presentation.
Or maybe not.
Jane.
, but maybe in an alternative universe I watched it, understood it, and wasn't irritated by the crappy "hey, look at me - I can hold a camera at an angle!" presentation.Or maybe not.
Jane.
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Videoed it, watched it. Good thing too as we had to watch some bit's twice before we were sure we understood them.
Am I the only person who finds that really big ideas make them hyperventilate a little?
Cujo
Am I the only person who finds that really big ideas make them hyperventilate a little?
Cujo
Glad i was working tonight, from the sound of it. I don't reckon Horizons the same since they stopped using the laser/smoke title sequence.
A correction to my last post, the second slit experiment I mentioned was performed using electrons - photons don't have spin.
A correction to my last post, the second slit experiment I mentioned was performed using electrons - photons don't have spin.
Yes but what about the content? A lot of it went way over my head but as I understand it, it is now accepted that parrallel universe's exist and the next step is to actually create a universe in the lab.
What I don't understand is why the earth in these universe's should be similar to our own. I see that many will be completley different with odd laws of physics involved and maybe the earth wouldn't even exist. But why should there be one where history is similar to our own other than that Hitler may have won the war, I put on different socks today, etc. Surely events on a planet like our earth would follow a different course or am I missing something obvious.
I suppose an infinite number of universe's would allow similar events to occur purely through random chance. Is that about right?
What I don't understand is why the earth in these universe's should be similar to our own. I see that many will be completley different with odd laws of physics involved and maybe the earth wouldn't even exist. But why should there be one where history is similar to our own other than that Hitler may have won the war, I put on different socks today, etc. Surely events on a planet like our earth would follow a different course or am I missing something obvious.
I suppose an infinite number of universe's would allow similar events to occur purely through random chance. Is that about right?
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Anonymous
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Saw it, thought the production was a bit ropey. Lots of gimmicky shots and bad computer graphics.
For those who missed it, it was an overview of M-Theory Superstring thinking, with the upshot being that our universe is one of an infinite number of four dimesional membranes that is moving around in an eleven dimesional space.
There was a good bit of speculation at the end that gravity was in fact a force leaking out from another universe, and our universe was created by two other 4d membranes colliding.
So we now know how our universe started, all we have to figure out now is how the eleven dimesional framework got there in the first place.
For anyone looking for a good book on string theory (one which I understood, and I dropped out of Science after my GCSE's) I would recommend The Elegent Universe by Brian Greene amazon link its like a readable, enjoyable version of a Brief History of Time.
For those who missed it, it was an overview of M-Theory Superstring thinking, with the upshot being that our universe is one of an infinite number of four dimesional membranes that is moving around in an eleven dimesional space.
There was a good bit of speculation at the end that gravity was in fact a force leaking out from another universe, and our universe was created by two other 4d membranes colliding.
So we now know how our universe started, all we have to figure out now is how the eleven dimesional framework got there in the first place.
For anyone looking for a good book on string theory (one which I understood, and I dropped out of Science after my GCSE's) I would recommend The Elegent Universe by Brian Greene amazon link its like a readable, enjoyable version of a Brief History of Time.
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Anonymous
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People seem to think A Brief History if Time is hard. It sold millions of copies didn't it? Can't be very hard then.
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Anonymous
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Yeah, but how many of those millions actually got past the first chapter
Intaglio - surely you mean Equinox!
Also the two-slit experiment is being used (i believe) as hte basis for the quantum calculator - which IS a parralel universe invoking device because it relies on photons passing through slots which act as logic gates, collapsing only into the right answer state. This preumably means that the universe you end up in whilst viewing the result is the one in which the answer is correct... or am I totally confused (no change there then )
Also i think that the multiverse theory, as mentioned above, sates that a universe is created at every quantum event. We'd like to think that it was based on human decision making and somehow reflected free will, but scientists are more pragmatic and don't believe that human mental states affect the outcome of quantum events. So although there is a paraverse in which Hitler wins ww2 it's because of a random set of quantum occurences...
I suppose from a Penrosean view one could argue that as mental states ARE quantum events the universe might collapse (through energy efficiency priciples,) to only branch based on this type of quantum event (ie mental ones) as only those univrses where the difference was marked enough for an observer to differentiate would be worth expending energy on. Therefore a paraverse in which Hitler won would be more likely to exist because more observers would notice this change and the gestalt consciousness would maintain this version of events. CF The Man in The High Castle by PK Dick.
Interestingly I read somewhere recently that a branch of buddhism believes that the universe is destroyed and reubilt 72,000(ish) times a second - seems to fit in somewhere.
Also the two-slit experiment is being used (i believe) as hte basis for the quantum calculator - which IS a parralel universe invoking device because it relies on photons passing through slots which act as logic gates, collapsing only into the right answer state. This preumably means that the universe you end up in whilst viewing the result is the one in which the answer is correct... or am I totally confused (no change there then
)Also i think that the multiverse theory, as mentioned above, sates that a universe is created at every quantum event. We'd like to think that it was based on human decision making and somehow reflected free will, but scientists are more pragmatic and don't believe that human mental states affect the outcome of quantum events. So although there is a paraverse in which Hitler wins ww2 it's because of a random set of quantum occurences...
I suppose from a Penrosean view one could argue that as mental states ARE quantum events the universe might collapse (through energy efficiency priciples,) to only branch based on this type of quantum event (ie mental ones) as only those univrses where the difference was marked enough for an observer to differentiate would be worth expending energy on. Therefore a paraverse in which Hitler won would be more likely to exist because more observers would notice this change and the gestalt consciousness would maintain this version of events. CF The Man in The High Castle by PK Dick.
Interestingly I read somewhere recently that a branch of buddhism believes that the universe is destroyed and reubilt 72,000(ish) times a second - seems to fit in somewhere.
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Anonymous
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Horizon progame
Did anyone watch horizon last night (thu 14th bbc2 9pm). It was really fasinating.It was about the possiblity about parallel universes. It is a theory that many scientists are taking very seriously.The progame was mindblowing.
Did anyone watch horizon last night (thu 14th bbc2 9pm). It was really fasinating.It was about the possiblity about parallel universes. It is a theory that many scientists are taking very seriously.The progame was mindblowing.
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Anonymous
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Yeah, I saw it, very interesting and well over my head
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Claire, didn't see the show but if you would like your mind fried some more try and grab a copy of David Deutch's "The Fabric of Reality". He's a professor at Oxford (i think, might be Cambridge) and he's got some very interesting ideas in this area. Quite readable too, although some of the exposition was waaaaay beyond my poor addled self.
I followed things up to and including string theory (matter is the 'harmonics' on a string), and then they went 11-dimensional and 'membrane' theory - whaaaa? Did I miss something?
Fascinating, but weird camera work, and (I thought) slightly lacking in logical progression - or am I thick?
Fascinating, but weird camera work, and (I thought) slightly lacking in logical progression - or am I thick?
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There are (at least) two other threads on this topic:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=36032#post36032
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2260
This MB is getting too successful - it's hard to keep up!
I suggested once before we need an intelligent message board, to get us all organised!
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=36032#post36032
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2260
This MB is getting too successful - it's hard to keep up!
I suggested once before we need an intelligent message board, to get us all organised!
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Anonymous
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Fair point, Rynner - but in defence of my starting a new thread, the old one was called "Any comments" and my intention was to make sure that people didn't miss the programme on Parallel Universes. I reckoned that if I had posted the reminder under "Any comments", people might not have picked it up.
If I'm interested in something particular, I always use "Search" to see if it's been discussed before - and I usually find very relevant and varied information on most topics. I'd recommend that approach to everyone - and also recommend making the title of any new thread as relevant to the subject as possible. Unless it's Chat, in which case, anything goes!
(And now I've thrown this thread into the realms of "Website Issues" - sorry, all!)
If I'm interested in something particular, I always use "Search" to see if it's been discussed before - and I usually find very relevant and varied information on most topics. I'd recommend that approach to everyone - and also recommend making the title of any new thread as relevant to the subject as possible. Unless it's Chat, in which case, anything goes!
(And now I've thrown this thread into the realms of "Website Issues" - sorry, all!)
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horizon prog
watched the prog. ( the graphics were crap ) and understood a little (I'm still mentally challenged by relativity...) but what seemed of interest to forteans was the statement that the membranes of the parallel universes were less then atomic distances apart and supposedly touched in ripples, so if I got it right then the chances of energy or matter "breaking" across membranes could occasionally be high .i.e. anything from a bolt of elecricity to an arm or a leg coming through a hole, or you putting part of urself back the other way (reported on other threads).Zat rite??
watched the prog. ( the graphics were crap ) and understood a little (I'm still mentally challenged by relativity...) but what seemed of interest to forteans was the statement that the membranes of the parallel universes were less then atomic distances apart and supposedly touched in ripples, so if I got it right then the chances of energy or matter "breaking" across membranes could occasionally be high .i.e. anything from a bolt of elecricity to an arm or a leg coming through a hole, or you putting part of urself back the other way (reported on other threads).Zat rite??