Physics Friday #15 [DWQ]: Multiverse theories
Preamble: What is DWQ?
This is another mini-series that will be ongoing. Similar to opinion posts, there is another type of post that I want to explore.
DWQ - Dealing with Quacks (alternatively, Crackpots or Nuts)
Both crackpots and quacks are unified by what they do. They propose there is something "fundamentally wrong with physics" and that they have this new theory that will change everything.
Their theory is about some fundamental truth with the universe. That the "physics establishment" is constantly attempting to chase ridiculous theories because they don't want to accept reality.
A crackpot is someone who generally has expertise in physics, or a related field like chemistry or engineering. Often they are motivated by a desire for fame.
A quack is someone who has no experience in the field, often with a monetary interest in what they are selling.
"Nuts", which is short for "religious nuts" are those who promote their ideas out of faith and a desire to spread their beliefs. They are more likely to strawman existing ideas first.
I hope that you, the reader, can already understand why I don't like these people. They muddy the waters, mess around with science communication, and give the profession a bad rep. They also lie and pedal disinformation, which ends up acting as a gateway to more serious conspiracy theories within the medical or political realm.
It's also important to identify that this acts on a scale. Technically, some string theorists are a lite form of crackpot - particularly in the way they present their theories and ideas to the public.
But they are significantly more respectable than a flat-earther, or a self-help guru, or a evangelical apologist.
The Multitude of Multiverse theories, or the MultiMultiverse
Multiverse theor(ies) are usually strawmans made by religious fanatics. Think PragerU as a great example.
The argument goes like this:
Scientists have no empirical explanation for fine tuning or the reason for the existence of the universe
In order to explain it, they constructed multiverse theory to explain the source of it
By occam's razor, the simpler argument is the existence of a creator entity, that fine-tuned things for us
Of course you can see how bad the arguments are. The problem is of course that science hasn't accepted any multiverse theory.
Multiverse theories are neat explanations or consequences of other theories, but they are either limited in their explanatory power, or their efficacy to test.
But what are the multiple multiverse theories? Here's three that people claim are multiverse theories:
Many worlds interpretation (a QM thing, and only a multiverse theory in pop culture)
Inflation multiverse theory (one possible consequence of the cosmic inflation hypothesis)
Just an actual multiverse theory (arguable cosmic inflation can lie here)
Many Worlds Interpretation
I've already run through the main gambit of what the Everett interpretation is, so I'm going to tackle this from a pop sci perspective.
When you were younger, you might've heard that the many worlds interpretation literally means many worlds. That with every decision you make, you create a new seperate branching reality. And that multiple realities can simultaneously exist.
Of course, there is an issue with this. Mainly that there aren't multiple realities - there is just one reality, in a superposition of states.
This superposition dictates there is one reality, just that this reality is probabilistic. These realties aren't separated by physical space. It's just one big 'wavefunction'.
Decisions in the many worlds interpretations are also examples of when pop sci goes wrong. It's not necessarily the religious nuts who cause this misconception.
What causes more splits in the wave function is the interactions within it. When an electron collides with a positron, when a chemical in your brain goes from one end to the other. Interaction is what creates these splits.
Technically, decisions are caused by the interactions between electrical signals in our brain, and us making a decision often involves interacting with the world around us. This is how the misconception arises, but the reality is that the split occurs well before and well after a choice is made.
Of course, it's important to state that, the many worlds interpretation is still not the "correct" interpretation. What it posits hasn't been proven.
Inflation Multiverse theory
Inflation theory in itself is already a bit on the rocks in terms of an explanation of why our universe is the way it is. There isn't really any way we can use GR/the standard model to explain why inflation happened. At least, without having to add an extra field or constant in our equations.
Generally, inflation is explained using the addition of a new inflaton field, which in the higher temperatures of the early universe, caused a rapid expansion of spacetime.
This rapid expansion is generated by the field living in a heightened energy state.
At some point, the field reaches a sudden drop-off, at which point the expansion rate suddenly slows down to our expected GR level. The inflaton field then remains at a local minima.
Where does the Multiverse theory come into this?
The drop-off of the inflaton field is not universal. It only occurs at particular points in spacetime. This creates a 'bubble' of space that slowly expands in comparison to the surrounding ocean of space that is rapidly expanding.
We exist in one of these bubbles, which expands at a normal rate. But we aren't the only bubble.
There could be several bubbles surrounding us. All separated by physical space that expands at incredible rates. These bubbles create an effective multiverse.
It's not technically a multiverse because every bubble is still in one single physical universe.
Generally, this version of inflation multiverse theory is better accepted as it has inflation theory to back it up. But it's still not provable, so it's not regarded as truth.
The actual Multiverse theories
There are several multiverse theories. But the key thread linking the other multiverses, is that there is no physical way to traverse the space in-between worlds, and that each universe is seperate in beyond a physical capacity.
I can't go into many different multiverse theories, because the main point is that they're all either bullshit or thought experiments.
One example is the "temporal multiverse theory" which states that time is actually a 3-dimensional quantity, were our multiverses are caused by separations in time.
When you go back in time and alter the past, you end up in an alternate timeline future. This is a common way to interpret most time travel movies or scenarios.
Another is the "10-dimension" theory. There are 3 dimensions of space, 3 dimensions of time, and 3 dimensions of "universe". What is this universe dimension? Well it's effectively supposed to be an altering of the fundamental physical parameters.
The problem is that we don't think that the universe happens to perfectly have three degrees of freedom in it's construction.
The 10th dimension is usually unexplained in this theory.
So what was that fundamentalist strawman about?
There is an idea in physics called "quantum darwinism". This theory basically states that from the many worlds interpretation, there will be one probabilistic reality where human consciousness lives in. And thus that version of reality will be the one we see, as it was fit for human life.
This principle can be extended to various different versions of multiverse theory. That out of the many possible realities, we observe the reality that created the perfect conditions for human life.
This argument, that the universe was predisposed to observation, because it had to circularly, is called the anthropic principle. It can be said that it's an extension of the copernican principle.
And that's it. That's the strawman. Of course, this form of darwinism is not really an actual theory, more a thought experiment.
Conclusion
This post is slightly less long than the other ones but still a lot. Oops! Ruh roh!
Anyways, I hope y'all like this post with a different topic. They will be rarer because I want to take my time tackling these types of posts. Please lmk if you think this post was informative or if you'd like to see more!
Next week will probably be on Baryon Acoustic Oscillations. Follow if you wanna see more!
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