
Scientists find first evidence that many universes exist - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-scientists-evidence-universes.html
======
caf
_Still, the scientists acknowledge that it is rather easy to find a variety of
statistically unlikely properties in a large dataset like the CMB_

One is reminded of "Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!" as an example of
this error (<http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html>)

~~~
gphil
Yes, I think this comment gets it exactly. This kind of research always
bothers me because it starts with narratives like the Big Bang and parallel
universes and then (ab)uses the data to corroborate them. The problem is that,
on a multiversal scale, we really have only one observable data point (our
universe) so just about any cognitive model that we can come up with can be
used to explain its idiosyncrasies with equal validity.

This result is very different from actually observing many universes bumping
into each other, or multiple universes starting from a big bang. It's more
like seeing a coin come up heads once, and then claiming that the model "coins
always come up heads" is the best model describing that situation.

------
Udo
Isn't this really just a variation on the Penrose fallacy that occurred not-
so-long ago, probably resulting from an inability to account for the
statistical and technical properties of our CMB measurements?

------
jfb
I read this headline as "Scientists find first evidence that many universities
exist". Vacation clearly cannot come fast enough.

~~~
nkassis
This would make for an epic onion article ;p

------
brianwillis
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the two-slit experiment the "first"
evidence that other universes exist?

~~~
maeon3
My head just exploded, that explains everything! The collapse of the electron
wave function is a symptom of something causing the electron to stop behaving
as a multidimensional particle and begin behaving as a single dimensional
particle. woah.

~~~
brianwillis
I'm not sure if you're making fun of me, or your response is just way over my
head.

~~~
Natsu
> I'm not sure if you're making fun of me, or your response is just way over
> my head.

Honestly, cosmology is like that for most people.

------
orblivion
I really hope this isn't true. I can't begin to imagine the horrors we'd have
to accept as part of reality as a consequence.

~~~
vorg
What horrors? Our sun is already one of 100 billion in the Milky Way, and our
galaxy one of (is it?) 1 trillion in the 13-billion-year-old observable
Universe. It's only a small step to accept our observable Universe is only one
of 10 trillion bubbles in the Multiverse.

~~~
orblivion
The fact that the apparent randomness seen in quantum mechanics is actually
our traveling down one of many possibilities, each of which manifest of their
own right. Which means that, if I reach success in my life, thinking back to
the hopeful sorry self in my past, I can no longer say, "to think, that sorry
guy became the success he is today". That sorry guy also died of cancer, fell
off a cliff, died alone, became a heroin addict, and won the lottery. It means
that if we as a race ever successfully end poverty or oppression, there will
be infinite other amount of scenarios where it never happened and probably got
worse. I could imagine all sorts of horrible possibilities but I won't.

I'm just going off of what other people seem to conclude from this theory. I
admit it seems a bit juvenile that _every_ conceivable thing is possible.
("Everything you can think of is true" - Tom Waits) There's probably a lot of
physical limitations. But I still worry what sorts of horrible scenarios it
may allow for.

But, I dunno, maybe not all multiple universe theories are the same.

~~~
yters
I think it's cool too, since every possibility has a non-zero probability of
occurring, so I can attempt absolutely anything I want, no matter how crazy,
and somewhere I will have succeeded. I don't even have to put in any effort.

Of course, if the set of possibly horrible things is much larger than that of
possibly great things, then yes reality sucks. Given that there are always
many more ways things can go wrong than right, I guess reality sucks.

So, the end result is I don't even have to do anything and my dreams come
true, but that doesn't matter because so do my nightmares, and there are more
of them.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>I think it's cool too, since every possibility has a non-zero probability of
occurring

So, in some universe there is no extent multiverse?

Not every thing that appears possible is.

~~~
yters
Physically speaking.

------
joe_the_user
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", right?

How much data would be required to determined _which_ of the googleplex of
imaginable alternate universes are the ones which intersected this one?

~~~
davi
googolplex; the Googleplex is a place :)

(Can't resist pedantry in this case; my grandfather taught me what a googol
and a googolplex are way back in the dark ages and I have some affection for
the terms)

------
davidj
another article trying to perpetuate the big bang myth by fitting evidence
around a predetermined conclusion. We really need to abandon the big bang
theory and just admit we just don't know yet instead of fitting evidence to
our conclusion. If the paper concludes no single bang, and no singular event,
then no big bang happened.

~~~
jerf
Big Bang is currently accepted to the extent that it is because it has managed
to fit the facts best. Isolated suggestions here and there will explain this
bit better or explain that bit better and it makes for a great New Scientist
article every last freaking time somebody somewhere puts a pre-pre-print up on
arxiv, but nobody has actually put together a theory that explains the
totality better than the current standard theory. Everybody already knows that
it's broken, that's not news. And it takes more than "one paper" to determine
the matter either way, I can pretty much find "one paper" that'll say just
about anything.

We know we don't know. That's not news. Nobody has anything better yet. But
that's hardly an excuse to just throw our hands up and "abandon" what is
currently the best we've got.

In other news, everybody knows the Standard Model of particle physics has to
be broken; it is accepted not because it is _right_ but because nobody has
actually come up with anything uniformly better.

~~~
away
Scientists call it the Big Bang Theory. And in Science, the word "theory" is
supposed to basically be the equivalent of a proven phenomenon. Scientists do
not admit that the Big Bang theory is broken. They really believe that
everything in the universe came from nothing even though it violates
everything in cause-and-effect.

~~~
ceejayoz
Go back far enough and everything boils down to "something from nothing" or
"something was always there". Both options violate everything in cause-and-
effect.

We either don't exist - demonstrably false - or the universe's start doesn't
necessarily abide by cause-and-effect as we humans understand it.

~~~
yters
Couldn't God have created everything from nothing? God is philosophically
understood to be a self sufficient being. He is also understood to be all
powerful, thus capable of creating something from nothing.

Seems a justified and tidy resolution to the supposed problem you refer to.

~~~
Flankk
You are just adding another layer of abstraction. Something created God or God
has existed forever.

If the universe existed forever, you don't need to create a God to create the
universe.

~~~
away
There is a difference though. From what we know of the big bang, there is a
starting point of the universe. The universe being started from nothing
violates physical laws. A spiritual entity wouldn't be bound by the same
physical logistics. Even if someone argues that it is "unlikely" for God to
exist, it is still atleast a logical possibility.

~~~
ceejayoz
> From what we know of the big bang

There's a lot we know we don't know of the Big Bang.

> The universe being started from nothing violates physical laws.

So does a God. Something has to be violating physical laws as we currently
understand them (and we hardly know everything yet...), so adding God doesn't
really get you anywhere.

