Plak 1

Kahleb Plak

Professor Hellmers

ENG.1201

12 July 2020

Multiverse / String Theory Research Paper

Oftentimes if you are out and about, and you overhear a conversation on the

topic of a Multiverse theory or a String theory, well odds are you’re in a Physics lab.

This is not a conversation for the closed-minded, because the sad truth about it, is that

there is no proof to any of it, however, a man can dream, right? Scientists are closing in

on enough technology and information to make a decisive choice on whether or not we

actually the existence of a Multiverse, or Parallel universes, is possible, and with deep

research, it is possible. To put it simply, the Multiverse / String theory is the possibility

that there is a universe somewhere out there in space, where anything imaginable is

possible. A universe with dinosaurs still roaming the Earth? You’ve got it. A world where

you can walk around and it rains cats and dogs? Done. It is the idea that, if you don’t

like how things currently are in this lifetime, there is another universe out there that has

everything you’ve ever wished for. As stated in Dan Falk’s article in NBC News,

“Parallel universes where you never get a parking ticket, where you won a million-dollar

lottery, where you have a different name, where Germany won World War II, where

dinosaurs still roam Earth, and where Earth never formed in the first place” (Falk 1).

Physics has been around since the beginning of time, although it just took us as

a civilization a long time to catch onto things. To put it into perspective, The earliest

evidence of human life (Homo sapiens) was between roughly 2.5-4 million years ago,”
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Homo sapiens is part of a group called hominids, which were the earliest human-like

creatures. Based on archaeological and anthropological evidence, we think that

hominids diverged from other primates somewhere between 2.5 and 4 million years ago

in eastern and southern Africa. Though there was a degree of diversity among the

hominid family, they all shared the trait of bipedalism, or the ability to walk upright on

two legs” (Khan Academy). Although it has been in the world for as long as it has

existed, and while it is the sole reason the world was made in the first place, we as

humans have only slowly started discovering things about Physics in the past 200-300

years.

To put it into perspective, there are 2 types of Physics that are the most

commonly studied, Classical Physics and Modern Physics. Classical Physics is defined

as physics that is not involving quantum mechanics or the theory of relativity. Classical

Physics is defined as all physics discoveries from the beginning of time, to the 1900s.

This involves everything that we as humans know and experience in everyday life. On

the other hand, Modern Physics is all related to Physics past the 1900s to modern-day.

Even later than that, the Multiverse Theory was not even an idea to be discussed, until

very late in the 1980s, only 30 years ago. I find Physics to be a very interesting topic of

discussion because I believe that if you talk about the history of the subject, you are led

to realize that there is so much out in the world to be discovered.

The discovery of new information is always a neat thing for the world, for

example, in the past year we as humans took the first-ever HD picture of a Black Hole.

It is neat to think about because although it seems so simple, it took a very large group

of scientists many years to work together and develop the technology required to take
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such a photograph. However, like anything in the world, new scientific discoveries lead

to people having their doubts about if it is real or not. The biggest example of this would

probably have to be the moon landing. While we as a nation were in a great race vs. the

Russians to get the first man on the moon, the country didn’t think that we were ready

technology-wise to get a man up there, let alone on the moon. However, to the surprise

and doubt of many Americans, it was made possible. Now it is sad to admit that people

in our generation look back on such a remarkable event as that, and call it fake or

staged due to the fact that they don’t think that technology has advanced that far. Many

other theories like this are argued all over the world every day on their validity, “In this

physical Universe, it's important to observe all that we can and to measure every bit of

knowledge we can glean. Only from the full suite of data available can we hope to ever

draw valid, scientific conclusions about the nature of our Universe. Some of those

conclusions will have implications that we may not be able to measure: the existence of

the multiverse arises from that. But when people then contend that they can draw

conclusions about fundamental constants, the laws of physics, or the values of string

vacua, they're no longer doing science; they're speculating. Wishful thinking is no

substitute for data, experiments, or observables. Until we have those, be aware that the

multiverse is a consequence of the best science we have available today, but it doesn't

make any scientific predictions we can put to the test” (Siegel).

To start, clarification will be provided to allow the reader to learn about what

exactly the theory is, that way they can continue to read and understand without feeling

left out. There are questions you need to ask yourself and answer for yourself before

you can learn anything about this, however. Questions like, Is the world we live in
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different from other worlds? Has there ever been another Big-Bang that created other

galaxies very far away from here? Asking yourself these questions will hopefully guide

the reader to the realization that we are in fact tiny. We make up such a small fraction of

space in the universe that it is insane to believe that we are all the universe has to offer,

“If we define "universe" as "all there is" or "all that exists," then obviously, by definition,

there can be only one universe. But if we define "universe" as "all we can ever see" (no

matter how large our telescopes) or "space-time regions that expand together," then

many universes may indeed exist. There is nothing in science more awesome, more

majestic. To discern the nature of ultimate reality, one must begin with the challenge of

multiple universes” (Kuhn).

Although there is a good amount of information out there in the world about these

theories, unlike other theories this one started to circulate amongst physicists in the late

1980’s. A Philosopher by the name of Robert Weingard wrote in his journal, A

Philosopher Looks at String Theory, “Already in 1988, after the first wave of string

enthusiasm which started with the development of the first consistent anomaly-free

perturbative supersymmetric string theories” (Weingard 12), Showing that the Theory

has been around for only roughly ~30 years. Although there is not a lot of history behind

the theory, there is a lot of backlash behind it. When there is a step to the right trying to

prove the theory; There is an equal step from someone else trying to disprove the

theory itself. In the article The Internal and External Problems of String Theory by

Reiner Hedrich, the author himself goes back and forth trying to give light to the theory,

and then back it with light to the doubt behind the theory, “it seems to be a rather
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confusing collection of physical intuitions and mathematical procedures which either will

or will not lead finally to a physical theory” (Hedrich 2).

As aforementioned, since this theory is only a few decades old, there is not much

proof for or against the theory out there sadly, which devalues any counterargument

against the theory. However, I can discuss some possible answers to the theory that I

have learned about doing research. As discussed in Ethan Siegal’s contribution to

Forbes Magazine, “That's the idea of the multiverse. As you can see, it's based on two

independent, well-established, and widely-accepted aspects of theoretical physics: the

quantum nature of everything and the properties of cosmic inflation. There's no known

way to measure it, just as there's no way to measure the unobservable part of our

Universe. But the two theories that underlie it, inflation and quantum physics, have been

demonstrated to be valid. If they're right, then the multiverse is an inescapable

consequence of that, and we're living in it.” Showing that if what we think to be right in

the universe is actually right, then we are living in the theory that we believe to be true,

however, we can not develop a finite answer until science further evolves. While in the

discussion of Science evolving, I will follow with an article published by the University of

Cambridge, in partnership with Stephen Hawking, and Thomas Hertog, called Taming

the multiverse—Stephen Hawking's final theory about the big bang. In this article, there

is an excerpt discussing what Scientists are doing to gain further knowledge on the

theory, “Their approach uses the string theory concept of holography, which postulates

that the universe is a large and complex hologram: physical reality in certain 3-D spaces

can be mathematically reduced to 2-D projections on a surface” (Cambridge 1).

While in the discussion of a theory as powerful to the mind as the Multiverse /

String theory, you must take a step back and educate yourself on the theory first, before

you can start to debate. In our world, we see things 3-Dimensionally. However, this

does not necessarily mean that there are only 3 dimensions. We as humans have only

ever experienced 3 dimensions, nothing higher, and it is even difficult to think about

anything higher than that. In the discussion of the String Theory, most Physicists are in

discussion of 7 to 8 dimensions, which is just brain-twisting. Many Physicists have put

this idea to the test, “Unfortunately, string theory can't give us an answer, at least not

yet. The trouble is that string theory isn't done — we only have various approximation

methods that we hope to get close to the real thing, but right now we have no idea how

right we are. So we have no mathematical technology for following the chain, from the

specific manifold to specific string vibration to the physics of the universe”(Sutter) shows

that the information that we have can only get us so far. Although stated that it is very

difficult to come to conclusions with the information that we already know, we have

made some interesting discoveries about this theory, “With further mathematical insight,

it was found that the extra six spatial dimensions needed in string theory have to be

wrapped up in a particular set of configurations, known as Calabi-Yao manifolds after

two prominent physicists. But there isn't one unique manifold that's allowed by string

theory. There's around 10^200,000. It turns out that when you need six dimensions to

curl up on themselves and give them almost any possible way to do it, it … adds up”

(Sutter) which shows that we have made some discoveries about it with the technology,

and means of information that we have access to in modern-day. Back to the discussion

of the dimensions, in our world we have 3, while recently it was discovered, while
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researching an “M-Theory” that we would need just a few more than 3, we would need a

mind-blowing 11, “One curious feature of M-theory (the little that we know about it, that

it) is that what we consider string theory appears to be just a low-energy approximation

of the real deal. And that real deal requires not 10 but 11 dimensions in our universe.

What's more, the fundamental object of reality is no longer the string but the d-brane.

"Brane" is just a fancy word for multidimensional vibrating things, with the letter "d"

signifying the dimension, giving us everything from 1-branes (strings) to 2-branes

(sheets) to 3-branes (blobs) and more” (Sutter).

Along with evidence for the theory, of course, there are counterarguments and

evidence against the theory, which would be ignorant to avoid and not give peace of

mind to. If one has ever studied anything about space, they probably heard that our

universe is “expanding” and many think that multiple million years down the line, that will

cause the downfall of humanity. The idea is that the space between earth and the sun

will continue to grow larger throughout time, causing the oceans to eventually freeze,

and the world to go dark forever. However, if you think about this idea backward, you

find out that many millions of years ago, we were once closer to the sun than we are

now. Since the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, one can only imagine how close things

were just a few million years ago. This ties directly to the Multiverse theory, “ That's the

idea of the multiverse. As you can see, it's based on two independent, well-established,

and widely-accepted aspects of theoretical physics: the quantum nature of everything

and the properties of cosmic inflation. There's no known way to measure it, just as

there's no way to measure the unobservable part of our Universe. But the two theories

that underlie it, inflation and quantum physics, have been demonstrated to be valid. If
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they're right, then the multiverse is an inescapable consequence of that, and we're living

in it. So what? That's not a whole lot, is it? There are plenty of theoretical consequences

that are inevitable, but that we cannot know about for certain because we can't test

them. The multiverse is one in a long line of those. It's not particularly a useful

realization, just an interesting prediction that falls out of these theories”(Kuhn). Along

with doubt and arguments against the theory, of course, you have Satire to go along

with it, “Because even though it's obviously a bad idea, they don't have any better ones”

(Siegel). As well as, “It’s “theories” plural because the multiverse is used in various

ways to fill gaps in our current understanding. Cosmological multiverse theories

“explain” why the initial conditions that prevailed at the Big Bang origin of our universe,

and the physical constants and laws which shaped its subsequent evolution, appear so

exquisitely fine-tuned to allow for the possibility of life. The idea is that there’s nothing

particularly special about our “Goldilocks” universe: it is simply one of a (possibly

infinite) number of universes, all with different initial conditions, constants, and laws.

Most will be inhospitable, but it should come as no surprise to find ourselves in a

universe which isn’t” (Baggott).

Now, enough about Physics in the past, after learning about all of this information

from the past, one is left to ask themselves, “What is to come in the future for Physics ?”

Scientists and Physicists alike have one goal for the future, Unity. It makes perfect

sense if you think about it, what is easier to do, a 10 page paper by yourself or a project

with teams of 10 where you are assigned 1 paper to write? Along with unification,

Physicists want to link previously unlinkable parts of physics, “A major theme is

unification. Where Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism to create his

electromagnetic theory and explain the nature of light, physicists are now working to pull

all the forces of physics into one overarching framework. The electroweak force, for

instance, has united electromagnetism with the weak force that governs interactions

between particles in an atomic nucleus. We have yet to find how these are linked with

the strong force, which binds the quarks that lie inside the nuclear particles”(Brooks). In

the discussion of what will come in the future, it is simply answered, we really don’t

know. This is a difficult question for the field since you really just have to guess what is

to come next, “In the end, that’s pretty much all one can say. We can only talk about

what is being done now. As we probed the atom, we got lasers, electronic computers,

and fission reactors, and the technological changes they ushered in took us all by

surprise. So how can we expect to have an accurate idea of what will come out of the

experiments being planned at the moment” (Brooks). Furthermore, showing that we just

aren’t sure what will come next, “It’s difficult to predict what lies in the future. It’s even

tougher when you don’t yet understand the physics that will take you there” (Brooks).

Based on all this information, a few things can be drawn by someone who has

been keeping tabs on all the statistics so far. First of all, it is not known what the future

holds, it is hard to predict anything, let alone anything in science. While it can be

accurate to make a good prediction on where things will head, it is almost impossible to

correctly predict what the future holds, for technology and discoveries alike. Conquering

this Theory and finally finding an answer, would take a man multiple times smarter than

the smartest man the world has ever seen, it will take many teams of scientists many

many years to even push further into what we can learn from this theory. After extensive

research on the topic of the Multiverse Theory / String Theory, I have made some
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interesting discoveries about science that I did not know before. I learned truly just how

important technology is to the discovery of new things in the world. With that in mind,

reflecting back on the question that I posed for this topic, “How much more evidence to

humans need to get on board with believing the Multiverse Theory? “ The answer is

simple, as of right now we can’t get any more evidence. This is a disappointing

realization after writing a whole paper based on it, however, there is an upside to this

realization. It is exciting to realize what our future holds for us as humans, and how

advanced we will become in our lifetimes. If you think about it, the oldest person alive

on the planet currently, was born before airplanes even existed, some short 120 years

ago. To think that in one lifetime we went from no airplanes, no phones, no TV’s to now

we are in the discussion of Colonizing Mars! (Shoutout to Elon). Looking at this fact, one

can only wonder where society will be technologically wise by the time our generation is

over, the possibilities of the world will seemingly be endless.

Works Cited

Falk, Dan. “What Is the Multiverse?” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group,

29 Nov. 2018, www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-multiverse-ncna876136.

“First Humans: Homo Sapiens & Early Human Migration (Article).” Khan Academy,

www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/world-history-beginnings/origin-

humans-early-societies/a/where-did-humans-come-from.

Hedrich, Reiner. “The Internal and External Problems of String Theory.”

Arxiv.org, 0 Apr. 2002, arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0610/0610168.pdf.

Siegel, Ethan. “What Is (And Isn't) Scientific About The Multiverse.” Forbes,

Forbes Magazine, 17 July 2018,

www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/07/17/what-is-and-isnt-scientific-

about-the-multiverse/#1e8aa13825c4.

The University of Cambridge. “Taming the Multiverse-Stephen Hawking's Final

Theory about the Big Bang.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 2 May 2018,

phys.org/news/2018-05-multiversestephen-hawking-theory-big.html.

Weingard, Robert. “A Philosopher Looks at String Theory.” PSA: Proceedings of

the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 1988, 1988,

pp. 95–106. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/192874. Accessed 10 July 2020.

Sutter, Paul. “How the Universe Could Possibly Have More Dimensions.”

Space.com, Space, 21 Feb. 2020, www.space.com/more-universe-dimensions-

for-string-theory.html.

Sutter, Paul. “String Theory vs. M-Theory: A Showdown to Explain Our

Universe.” Space.com, Space, 11 Mar. 2020, www.space.com/string-theory-11-

dimensions-universe.html.

Kuhn, Robert Lawrence. “Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes'

Would Mean.” Space.com, Space, 23 Dec. 2015, www.space.com/31465-is-our-

universe-just-one-of-many-in-a-multiverse.html.

Baggott, Jim. “The Problem with ‘Multiverse Theories’: They're Just Not Science.”

Prospect Magazine, 25 June 2018, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-

technology/the-problem-with-multiverse-theories-theyre-just-not-science.
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Michael Brooks Follow @@drmichaelbrooks !function(d, et al. What Is the Future

of Physics?, 23 Nov. 2015,

www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2015/11/what-future-physics.