The Multiverse is Probably Real and This Physicist Takes You There

Paul Halpern shares 5 key insights from The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes.

Do we live in a multiverse? The idea of parallel dimensions has long intrigued scientists and screenwriters alike, but how seriously should we take the concept? Here with some guidance is Paul Halpern, author of The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes. Paul is a professor of physics at Saint Joseph’s University and the author of eighteen popular science books. He’s the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Read or listen to his big ideas below:

The 5 Key Insights:

1. Curiosity drives us to think outside the box of observability.

2. Quantum reality is like an infinite hotel with a curious system of keys.

3. Inflating space seems as straightforward as blowing bubbles.

4. Telescopes and calculations reveal the observable universe’s weirdness.

5. Meeting our alternative selves is not how science treats the multiverse.

1. Curiosity drives us to think outside the box of observability.

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” goes the popular phrase. In our modern technological age, with cameras virtually everywhere, we long for pictorial proof of everything. Hence our fascination with the extraordinary photos taken by the James Webb Space Telescope of galaxies from the nascent years of the universe after the Big Bang. If only our instruments could pick up signals from all of space, we could systematically map it and perhaps develop a testable theory of everything. Many people who reject multiverse ideas argue that everything in science must be fully verifiable.