From: Zach D. Cox
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 11:25 AM
To: Edgar Villarreal
Subject: RE: I'll be out of the office this afternoon and tomorrow am
The title of the lecture was "Multiverse" and one of the ways to conceptualize how quantum mechanics works is not to think of it in a probabilistic way but instead think of each quantum event that can happen in multiple ways as actually happening in those ways and each of 'those-ways' creates a whole new universe.
This fantastic, huge, branching (Multiverse) is another way to conceptualize how quantum mechanics works.
The way the mathematics comes out separates the branches of the Multiverse in such a fashion that it is impossible for information to pass between the various branches, they are said to be casually independent.
The theory also states if you go back to the big bang you even get branches that have different laws of physics.
So one way to say it is 'yes' there can be these 'right-next-to-us' universes but another way to say it is that they are so 'far-away' that they can not interfere with our universe in any way what so ever.
There is another way to think about it where you do get to interact with the multiple branches of the Multiverse. But that is another story and could very well fall more into philosophy than science.
As far as string theory being closely coupled with the idea of the Multiverse I don't think so but in Brian Green's books he does go into this and String Theory does not have problem with this kind of interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Zach
-----Original Message-----
From: Edgar Villarreal
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 1:25 PM
To: Zach D. Cox
Subject: RE: I'll be out of the office this afternoon and tomorrow am
Hey Zach,
I saw a television program on 'string theory' on PBS a couple of months ago - am I correct in saying that string theory is the possible existence of immediate parallel universes (which we cannot see)?
Apparently they are right next to us, but in a different dimension?
Have fun, and I would like to hear your take on the lecture next week when I am up in beautiful and hopefully thawed-out Raleigh.
Regards, Edgar
-----Original Message-----
From: Zach D. Cox
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 1:15 PM
To: Nexus
Subject: I'll be out of the office this afternoon and tomorrow am
Importance: Low
I'm flying to Washington DC this afternoon to attend a lecture by Brian Green tonight and will fly back to RDU tomorrow AM.
See you tomorrow. And anyone who would like an explanation of string theory when I get back just ask :o)
Zach
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