Evidence for Parallel Universes

Physicist Max Tegmark on predictions that cannot be observed, explanation of the fine-tuning of the Universe, and quantum computers

videos | August 8, 2014

How can the theory that cannot be tested still be deemed scientific? How can the theory about the existence of parallel universes be supported? Why should we take predictions of parallel universes seriously? Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Max Tegmark speaks on levels of parallel universes.

Our Universe does not mean everything that exists – it simply means the part of space from which light has had time to reach us so far during 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang. So this is our Universe. If space is bigger than that then there are other universes, other regions of the same size farther away. If you want to know what’s happening in the galaxy over there you have to wait billions of years more for light to reach us, so we cannot see anything outside our Universe.

The logic is that if the inflation theory is correct and we take it seriously, we have to take seriously the idea that space is bigger than our universe, that there’re parallel universes, other regions of space, they’re just too far away for us to see. I call these parallel universes the level 1 parallel universes, because they’re not that different from our universe, the only difference is that over there the particles started out in different places, so the galaxies formed in different ways and if there are people over there, they will still learn the same things in physics class, but they might learn different things in history class, because things started out differently and history unfolded differently.

If you put in more dark energy than we have by a lot, you’ll destroy all the galaxies, dark energy prevent them from forming. If you change another number to do with the Higgs particle, somebody can’t have any atoms. And this is a big mystery in physics. Why is it that our Universe has these numbers, which seem to be fine-tuned for life? Is this just luck? Is that some kind of miracle? Well, the level 2 parallel universes actually give a scientific explanation for this.