Multiverses

[Argos]

A very interesting article approaching the questions of the size/origin of the universe, Standard model, inflationary model, etc. Very good both for newbies and pros.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/science/space/29COSM.html?pagewanted=1

Requires membership.

[Jigsaw]

Have NO clue what it's about, but happy to post relevant (I think) portions for those who may not wish to register.

A New View of Our Universe: Only One of Many
By DENNIS OVERBYE

...For example, Dr. Max Tegmark, a University of Pennsylvania cosmologist, has posited at least four different levels of universes, ranging from the familiar (impossibly distant zones of our own universe) to the strange (space-times in which the fundamental laws of physics are different).

< snip >

Some cosmologists now say the realm we call the observable universe — roughly 14 billion light-years deep of galaxies and stars — could be only a small patch of a vast bubble or "pocket" in a much vaster ensemble bred endlessly in a chain of big bangs.

The idea, they say, is a natural extension of the theory of inflation, introduced by Dr. Alan Guth, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1980. That theory asserts that when the universe was less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old it underwent a brief hyperexplosive growth spurt fueled by an antigravitational force embedded in space itself, a possibility suggested by theories of modern particle physics.

< snip >

Moreover, there is no reason to expect that these universes will be identical. Even within our own bubble, tiny random nonuniformities in the primordial raw material would cause the cosmos to look different from place to place. If the universe is big enough, Dr. Tegmark and others say, everything that can happen will happen, so that if we could look out far enough we would eventually discover an exact replica of ourselves.

[Argos]

OK, Jig. I believe this is an interesting matter for discussion here; the multiverse as a corolary of the inflation.