Space is big, but it’s peanuts compared to the eternally inflating multiverse.
But just how many bubble universes does the eternally inflating multiverse contain?
What are they like?
And most importantly, what can they tell us about aliens?
Imagine it: the observable part of our universe is 93 billion light years across, and that’s
just a small fraction of the stuff created in our Big Bang.
But in the eternal inflation picture, ours is just one among uncountable bubble universes.
Bubbles that are continuously appearing and growing within a vastly larger spacetime that
itself expands at an exponentially accelerating rate.
A greater inflationary spacetime whose expansion never ends.
We looked at the bizarre idea of eternal inflation in recent episodes – but we stopped short
of exploring the full implications of this proposition.
Those implications are, frankly, completely nuts.
Some may also be true.
Here’s the scenario: the default state of the greater universe – or multiverse - is
to expand exponentially due to the vacuum of space itself having a large and constant
energy density.
Energy locked into something called the inflaton field.
Within that inflating space, tiny patches stop inflating – the inflaton field in that
patch loses its energy and so accelerating expansion stops there.
Within each bubble we get a new Big Bang that kicks off a more slowly expanding universe.
But that bubble has an edge, and the edge spreads into the surrounding inflating spacetime
at the speed of light, causing inflation to stop within the growing bubble.
If lots of these bubbles form, they could collide with each other to produce a connected
network of non-inflating universe.
But the little patches where inflation persists are expanding so fast that they quickly dominate
the non-inflating network of bubbles, and so the cycle of inflation continues.
Some questions spring to mind: - I mean, besides “What?!?”
For example, how many bubble universes can be made this way?
How often do they collide?
Are those universes similar to each other, or wildly different?
I’ll give you an idea of our best thinking for all of these.
Let’s start with the first two, because these are basically our challenge question.
To fully answer these we’d need to know the true physics of the inflaton field.
But we can figure some stuff out just based on the exponential nature of the expansion.
For example, in the challenge question I asked you to calculate the RELATIVE number of new
bubble universes that formed in one second compared to the previous second.
We assumed that there’s a fixed but unknown probability that a bubble universe will form
in any given volume of inflating space.
That means the number of bubbles forming at each point in time should be proportional
to the volume of the inflating universe at that time.
So the rate at which that volume is increasing is the same as the rate at which bubble universes
multiply.
We assumed the minimum inflation rate that we think was needed to kick off our own universe.
The scale factor – or radius of the universe – increased by a factor of at least 10^26
in less than 10^-32 seconds.
So how much did the volume increase over 1 full second at this rate?
Well, a scale factor or radius increase of 10^26 means a volume increase of that cubed
– so 10^78.
Every 10^-32 seconds one cubic meter of volume becomes 10^78 cubic meters, which is approximately
the volume of our entire universe.
And then in the next 10^-32 seconds each of those 10^78 new 1-meter cubes spawns just
as many new entire universe-sized volumes.
So we have 10^78-squared, then 10^78-cubed, etc.
By the time we get to one full second we’ve multiplied by 10^78 10^32 times, so our volume
is 10^78 to the power of 10^32, or around 10^10^34.
And our number of new bubble universes should multiply by the same insane factor each second.
This gives us a ridiculously large number of universes even if the probability of making
one per unit of volume is insanely low.
The exponential nature of the expansion guarantees that.
As soon as the inflating spacetime is big enough to make one universe, in the next second
it should make 10^10^34 universes, and so on.
If you got this right then congrats.
We’ll list the winners as well as answer the extra credit question at the end of this
video.
As crazy as eternal inflation sounds, it’s still fun to think about the consequences
if all of this is true.
Here’s another one: do all of these bubble universes the same laws of physics, or could
they be wildly different from each other?
Based on standard ideas, they probably have the same number of dimensions as ours – 3
space, 1 time – but their contents and physics could be very different.
For example the cosmological constant – the strength of dark energy – could be different.
Remember that it was the high energy density of the inflaton field that drove inflation,
and the loss of that energy density that ended it.
But what if the inflaton field retained just a tiny bit of energy after its decay?
That residual field might be what we observe as dark energy.
It’s an open and contentious question why the current energy density of the vacuum should
be so low without being exactly zero given that it started out so large.
Seems awfully lucky – if dark energy were much stronger then our universe would have
restarted its accelerating expansion too quickly for galaxies and stars and life to ever form.
Here’s a possible explanation: what different bubble universes can end up with different
vacuum energies?
Very low vacuum energies like ours might be extremely rare, but there are so many bubble
universes that at least some will have a low enough cosmological constant for life to form.
Naturally, we would be in such a universe.
This is an example of using the Anthropic Principle - we must exist in a universe capable
of producing us, so if there are many universes it is natural that we find ourselves in one
finely tuned for life.
People have also invoked the anthropic principle plus eternal inflation to explain a conundrum
in string theory.
As we’ve talked about before, modern string theory is difficult to pin down because there
are countless possible minimum-energy configurations of its 6 curled up dimensions.
More than 10^500 possible vacuum states – probably a lot more.
The vast space of possible configurations of these compact dimensions is referred to
as the string landscape.
Each different configuration results in a different family of particles and also a different
cosmological constant.
We don’t know why our universe has the particular string vacuum state that it does.
But it’s lucky it does – because the resulting particles allow for things like complex chemistry.
Enter the anthropic principle once again: eternal inflation gives us enough universes
to easily populate the entire string landscape.
All different vacuum states exist, and our universe necessarily has one that leads to
life-friendly particles.
As well as a decent cosmological constant.
Some people aren’t comfortable with the anthropic principle.
Those people will be even less comfortable with the next idea.
This one is from Alan Guth, the guy who invented inflation in the first place.
Here it is: eternal inflation may solve the Fermi Paradox.
It may explain why we don’t see aliens.
The argument goes like this: if the number of new universes increases by a factor of
some impossibly large number every second, then the vast, vast majority universes in
existence were born recently.
There are vastly more universes born one second after ours than were born at the same time
as ours.
Now, imagine that there’s a set amount of time for the first intelligent life to form
in any one of these universes.
Let’s say 10 billion years.
Pretend that it’s the same in all universes down to the second.
The real timescale is going to be much more fuzzy than this, but it also doesn’t really
matter for this argument.
So, the first intelligence appears in our universe after exactly 10 billion years – we’ll
call that moment “second one”.
The same happens in the exact same second for universes that formed at the same time
as ours.
One second later – “second two” – you might get some more intelligent lifeforms
forming in those same universes.
Maybe just as many as in second one.
But consider the wave of universes that formed one second after our own.
These are only now reaching the 10 billion year mark and producing their first intelligent
lifeforms.
And of course there are vastly more of those slightly younger universes – more than all
the atoms in all the universes that are one second older.
So first civilizations in those younger universes will always outnumber all the civilizations
in all older universes.
The result is that at any one moment, almost all of the intelligent beings in the eternally
inflating multiverse are in the youngest universes that have had time to form intelligent life.
So if we imagine that we are a typical intelligent lifeform, then we’re most likely the most
common type across the multiverse, which means we’re the first to appear in our universe.
Ergo we shouldn’t be surprised that we don’t see aliens.
Guth calls this argument the Youngness Paradox.
Let’s be clear – he doesn’t necessarily believe it to be right.
He admits that, while it seems logically sound, it does seem weird enough to force us to question
the premises.
He proposes that there may be something off in the logic of weighing up probabilities
over bubble universes.
He also doesn’t rule it out.
OK, the last thing I want to talk about is colliding universes.
How often does it happen?
Let’s start by answering the extra credit question: how close to bubbles need to be
in order to collide?
I won’t go through the detailed calculation because it takes a wee bit of calculus.
Instead I’ll provide a link to the answer in the description.
But the too-long-didn’t-calculate is this: remember that bubble edges expand at the speed
of light.
If they form too far apart then the intervening inflating spacetime will throw them apart
at faster than light speed before they can merge.
Assuming the crazy rate of inflation in the question, you get that two bubble edges need
to be closer than 6x10^-50 m in order to reach each other.
This is something like 15 orders of magnitude smaller than the Planck length.
The implication is that universes don’t collide very often unless their rate of production
is extremely high.
And it might be very high – especially if the inflaton field is highly correlated from
one point to the next, as in slow-roll inflation.
But it still should NOT be surprising that we don’t see evidence of bubble collisions
in our observable universe.
If such collisions happened, they’re probably too far away for us to see.
OK, so we’re come up with a lot of ridiculously large AND small numbers, and convincingly
shown that none of this is easily testable.
Where does that leave eternal inflation?
Well we probably shouldn’t just accept it – but at the same time, current lack of
proof doesn’t mean something is wrong.
Just that the universe – or multiverse is playing hard to get.
But here’s something that’s not hard to get – Space Time swag.
If your name is listed below, you’re a winner of the challenge question and you get your
pick of a swag item from our merch store.
Email us your choice, any relevant size info, and your mailing address and we’ll get it
out to you.
Of course you can reward yourself for just listening to the answer by buying your own
swag.
Link in the description.
It’s the best humorous science apparel in all of spacetime.
Did you get enough spacetime today?
No?
Need more of a fix of that existenial awe at the wonder and weirdness of the universe?
Got burning question about the nature of reality?
I may have what you need.
We just launched a spacetime discord for 24-7 conversations on all of the above.
It's for our patreon members - but don't worry - it's the lowest of the lowest tiers - 2
bucks a month to help support the show and to indulge that voracious curiosity of yours.
Hope to see you over there.
And one the subject of Patreon, I wanted to give a big, big thanks to Alexander Tamas,
one o our big bang supporters.
Alexander has been traveling the bubble universes for many years, supporting local youtube space
shows where he finds them.
Alexander, we're glad you found us, and safe travels, wherever they may lead.
Last time we visited that old argument - Is Pluto a planet?
The question gets to the heart of what a scientific definition really is.
And a number of you found the International Astronomy Union's new defition of planet - the
one that excluded Pluto - not very scientific at all.
I thought it worth focusing on that for this comment response.
A number of people in the comment section echoed these thoughts - but special props
to Regolith on the spacetime discord, who's a bona fide planetary scientist.
I'm also echoing some of the thoughts of Alan Stern, lead scientist on the new horizons
mission to pluto.
There are two main arguments - firstly that the IAU definition is arbitrary and ambiguous,
second that it should have been planetary scientists that made this decision, not astronomers.
I acknowledged the arbitrariness in the episode - but ambiguity is a more serious concern.
that's something a scientific definition should never be.
Here the IAU definition again: "A planet is a sun-orbiting body massive enough to be round
and to have cleared it's orbit of debris".
It's that last bit - cleared its orbit - that excludes Pluto.
This might be considered arbitrary because "clearing the orbit" doesn't necessarily reflect
a fundamental difference in the physical nature and formation process of the body.
And that's an issue that planetary scientists take.
In fact, whether or not a body clears its orbit depends strongly on where in the solar
system it forms - the further out, the more massive a body needs to be to clear its orbit.
If Earth formed at 100 times its current distance from the sun it wouldn't have cleared its
orbit either, and so wouldn't be considered a planet.
But Jupiter in the same location would have.
So we end up with this somewhat complicated relationship between mass and distance from
the Sun that determines whether you get called a planet - and that relationship may not relate
to any scientifically interesting properties of the body.
So there's your arbitrariness.
But what about ambiguity?
Within our solar system it's clear enough which are planets and which aren't by this
definition.
But what about around other stars?
That brings us to the first part of the IAU definition - a planet has to be orbiting our
Sun.
That's right, other stars don't have planets - they have exoplanets.
The word planet is reserved exclusively for the 8 bodies of our solar system.
In fact you need this combination of requirements to know absolutely whether something is a
planet by the new definition.
In general, the new definitely of planet avoids ambiguity but at the cost of arbitrariness
- and you might also say of scientific usefulness.
Pluto aside, the new definition allows for two objects with extremely similar geophysical
properties to be differently classed.
For now the new definition makes things clearer than they were, but as our understanding grows
- particularly of exoplanets, maybe we need to be ready to change the definition again
- perhaps this time with more input from planetary scientists.
Who, after all, are THE literal experts and more frequent users of the term.