![]() ![]() Paul Steinhardt has famously argued that no experiment can rule out a theory if the theory provides for all possible outcomes. The ability to disprove a theory by means of scientific experiment is a critical criterion of the accepted scientific method. Some have argued that the multiverse is a philosophical notion rather than a scientific hypothesis because it cannot be empirically falsified. Concerns have been raised about whether attempts to exempt the multiverse from experimental verification could erode public confidence in science and ultimately damage the study of fundamental physics. Some physicists say the multiverse is not a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry. Prominent physicists are divided about whether any other universes exist outside of our own. The physics community has debated the various multiverse theories over time. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternate universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel universes", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "parallel realities", "quantum realities", "alternate realities", " alternate timelines", "alternate dimensions" and "dimensional planes". Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology, music, and all kinds of literature, particularly in science fiction, comic books and fantasy. (see Multiverse (Michael Moorcock)) Brief explanation The term was first used in fiction in its current physics context by Michael Moorcock in his 1963 SF Adventures novella The Sundered Worlds (part of his Eternal Champion series). In the story, Flash meets with his duplicate version of another Earth (Earth-2) and another Flash (Flash-2). The term was first used in fiction in September 1961 in the DC comic book titled Flash of Two Worlds (Flash Volume 1 #123) by Carmine Infantino and Gardner Fox. Winston Churchill, My Early Life, Chapter IX In his 1930 autobiography My Early Life, Winston Churchill cited the theory when explaining his preference for "believing whatever I want to believe": Ĭertainly nothing could be more repulsive to both our minds and feelings than the spectacle of thousands of millions of universes – for that is what they say it comes to now – all knocking about together for ever without any rational or good purpose behind them. This sort of duality is called " superposition". He said that when his equations seemed to describe several different histories, these were "not alternatives, but all really happen simultaneously". ![]() ![]() In Dublin in 1952, Erwin Schrödinger gave a lecture in which he jocularly warned his audience that what he was about to say might "seem lunatic". The concept first appeared in the modern scientific context in the course of the debate between Boltzmann and Zermelo in 1895. The American philosopher and psychologist William James used the term "multiverse" in 1895, but in a different context. The concept of multiple universes became more defined in the Middle Ages. In the third century BCE, the philosopher Chrysippus suggested that the world eternally expired and regenerated, effectively suggesting the existence of multiple universes across time. The first to whom we can definitively attribute the concept of innumerable worlds are the Ancient Greek Atomists, beginning with Leucippus and Democritus in the 5th century BCE, followed by Epicurus (341-270 BCE) and Lucretius (1st century BCE). However, there is debate as to whether he believed in multiple worlds, and if he did, whether those worlds were co-existent or successive. The different universes within the multiverse are called "parallel universes", "other universes", "alternate universes", or "many worlds".Īccording to some, the idea of infinite worlds was first suggested by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Anaximander in the sixth century BCE. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes.
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