Like it or not, life is full of regrets and embarrassing moments.
You sleep through your alarm and miss a flight, spill coffee on your shirt, call your date
by the wrong name.
(Ooh, that’s a felony!)
Is there a way to take it all back?
Psh, only in an alternate universe!
Wait, but could you really?...
When you look up at the night sky, you see thousands of bright shining little dots we’ve
come to call “stars” …at least in the English language.
Then there’s that big cheese-looking thing.
Yeah, the moon.
When you look at the same sky using the most powerful telescopes, you'll see even more
stars and galaxies spread around space in a sphere about 92 billion light years in diameter.
This is already impressive and huge, but does it all end there?
Can you actually go beyond that sphere?
Science says… “probably.”
Well, that’s anticlimactic…
Physicists call this concept the multiverse.
So while the “universe” technically means everything that exists, the “multiverse”
means an infinite number of those “everythings.”
Yes, there’s not just one alternate or parallel universe like you see in movies, TV shows,
and so on.
There’s an uncountable number of universes that exist side by side in higher dimensions
that we can’t even perceive or observe.
In each of these universes, there’s an alternate copy of yourself that looks a lot like you.
Only, they make different choices that lead to different outcomes on a daily basis.
One of those “you’s” might’ve set 3 alarms, woke up no problem, and didn’t
miss the flight to your sister’s wedding.
Then, in some other universe, you never skipped physics in high school, went on to study it
in college, and became an awesome scientist who discovers the multiverse!
Hey, maybe in one of those versions you called that date by the right name, and you two ended
up being soulmates!
(Or maybe you saved yourself in this one – what if they were looney!?)
Anyway, all of this sounds pretty awesome as it gives endless opportunities.
But is there any scientific proof it could be real?
To answer that question, let’s start small.
In the universe, be it ours or some parallel kind, everything is connected.
The smallest things directly influence the largest things.
Everything in that universe (including you and me!) is made of atoms.
Atoms, in turn, are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons.
We’ll skip the morons for now.
Quantum physics (that’s the science that studies all these teeny tiny particles) say
electrons have a superpower: instead of just moving in one direction, they can spin both
clockwise and counterclockwise.
Now, atoms, powered with these super particles, can do plenty of things.
They can go to the left or right, they can jump up and down, spin, and whatnot.
But according to quantum physics, they don’t choose just one option but do everything they
possibly can at the same time!
The “multiverse” concept is based on the same idea.
Anything that can happen actually does happen somewhere out there.
Every possible combination of particles and every possible scenario gives birth to a different
universe.
One of such possible scenarios brought our universe into existence billions of years
ago.
Before the Big Bang, the universe was a super hot, small, and dense point with no stars
or any form or structure whatsoever.
About 13.8 billion years ago, give or take, this tiny point started expanding at a crazy
speed.
Atoms were formed, and then stars and galaxies.
All this expansion never really stopped – it just slowed down.
To this day, galaxies keep moving away from each other as the space fabric between them
is being stretched.
While this is happening, other universes pop up into existence.
Some of them have no atoms, galaxies, or living beings because they may be expanding or collapsing
way too fast.
But there must be others that are more like our universe with many alternate versions
of you and me.
As long as it’s possible for life to evolve, it’ll continue to do so.
Just like there’s an infinite number of combinations of particles and universes, there’s
an infinite number of possible physical laws ruling in those universes.
In one, for instance, electrons are much heavier than here, energy behaves differently, and
gravity is much stronger than in our world – the possibilities are limitless!
Hey, here’s something to think about: perhaps in one of those universes, life is two-dimensional?
I know, it breaks the brain to think about it.
I guess it’d be like looking at a comic book about your life!
What would your comic book be called and what would be the best scenes in it?
Let me know down in the comments!
Here’s another cool one to consider: let’s say the visible light spectrum is reversed
in one of those worlds.
So, what you now see as blue would be orange.
What’s red would be green.
Oh, that big yellow sun in the sky?
It’s now purple!
Anyway, back to the sciencey stuff.
Because space-time constantly begins and stretches, it just has to repeat itself at some point.
At least that’s what mathematics say.
But could you ever travel to another space-time?
If you believe there’s been more than one Big Bang, traveling to another universe would
be like going back in time to the moment before our own was born.
Traveling back in time is really tricky.
But it’s not completely impossible if you trust the theory of general relativity.
Why wouldn’t you?
Einstein was a smart guy!
According his famous theory, you can make a loop out of space-time and travel through
it.
Imagine it like a rollercoaster that would relocate you in both space and time to the
point before you started the journey.
Stephen Hawking, however, questioned this possibility by asking why we haven’t seen
any time travelers from the future yet.
As for traveling to the future, it’s also possible according to the same theory.
Einstein believed time is not an absolute.
You can actually stretch or squeeze it – all it takes is a certain speed.
If you get close to the speed of light, time will slow down.
When you stop, more time will have gone by for everyone else than for you.
So, you’ll have traveled to the future, even if it’s not by much!
Another possible option to travel to the future is based on gravity.
According to Einstein’s theory, gravity slows down time.
So time is technically passing by faster on a mountain top than at its bottom.
This difference is close to nothing on Earth, but if you could travel to a place with a
super strong gravitational pull, like a black hole, you'd see some remarkable results.
If you move around it a few times, its gravitational field would slow down time for you.
You'd be away for many years.
But when you came back to Earth, you’d still look just as young as you did when you set
on out on the journey!
All this sounds theoretically possible yet pretty hard to arrange in real life.
But it doesn’t mean you should be sad that you can’t travel to an alternate universe!
In fact, you’re already in many of them at this very moment!
If the theory of parallel universes is true – you’re making every possible choice
you can all the time.
And in this way, you’re constantly traveling between parallel universes without even knowing
it.
That should make you feel at least a little better about any bad decisions you’ve ever
made!
“Hey, at least Me #5,671 never took that horrendous job I’d waste 6 years of my life
at!
Then again, he wouldn’t have learned so much from that mistake!
Always looking on the bright side!”
With the technology that currently exists, humans can’t see what’s beyond our observable
universe.
Meanwhile, physicists are looking for ways to unlock the mysteries of the multiverse
and prove the existence of parallel universes.
They might even find gateways to them!
In 2012, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider discovered the Higgs boson – an elementary
particle that gives other particles their mass.
Without it, atoms and humans never would’ve formed!
Scientists can’t see these particles yet, but CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, has announced their plan to build a larger more powerful collider to discover
those particles.
According to particle physicist Dr. James Beacham, if that doesn’t work out, then
the plan is to go even further.
They’d build a particle collider around the Moon to reach energies tens of thousands
of times larger than currently available!
The next step would be building a collider around the outer edge of the Solar System.
However, even if scientists find evidence that other universes exist, it’s still unlikely
that humans will ever be able to interact with them…
But maybe in an alternative universe, they’ve already found a way to exchange information
and travel to other universes and times?
Maybe that oddly dressed guy you saw on the bus the other day is from another dimension!
Kinda looked like Will Smith too!
Hey, if you learned something new today, then give the video a like and share it with a
friend!
And here are some other cool videos I think you'll enjoy.
Just click to the left or right, and stay on the Bright Side of life!