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THE MULTIVERSE
Only 100 years ago it was thought that all the stars were in a vast disc-like region, billions forming a glowing band across the night sky called the Milky Way. That was "The Galaxy;" that was our Universe, out to the edge of space. Then it was discovered that some faint cloudy patches called nebulae were other galaxies, many very like our own. The Hubble Space Telescope stared at a tiny patch of sky, a pinhead at arm's length, for a week-long exposure, and showed that our home galaxy is one of some hundred billion others. In the background all over the sky a glow of microwaves from the Big Bang showed that our Universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
Is that IT? Is that Totality, everything? Or have we once again completely put ourselves - in this case our Universe - in a dominant position? Could there be other universes, completely disconnected from our own? If one, why not many? If many, why not millions, billions, or trillions? Such a totality is called the "MULTIVERSE."
There are many versions of the multiverse idea. Many scientists say that if we can never prove or disprove the existence of other disconnected universes it is not really SCIENCE, which progresses by testing, observing, and falsifying.
But if this universe is the only one, is it not extraordinarily unlikely that physics is just such as to allow complex organisms such as our brain to exist? The universe had to expand at just the right rate to allow time for evolution. Carbon is the only one of approximately 100 different elements with an atomic structure that can form complex molecules such as proteins. The abundance of carbon atoms, formed in nuclear reactions in stars, depended on a very specific energy level inside the carbon nucleus. Protons have to be lighter than neutrons. There is a long list of such seeming "miracles" - physics parameters that allow our universe to be just right for life. The "Goldilocks Principle."
Many religious people believe that is because our Universe was designed that way. Many scientists believe that every one of the trillions upon trillions of universes in the multiverse has different physics (different particles, forces, dimensions, ...) and that they are nearly all sterile. At least one - perhaps only one - allows the complexity needed for life. But that is a belief would you call it a religion?
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