Coda (and so much more)

As always, click for big. This nifty illustration shows my current favorite theory of the Multiverse - to wit: Our Universe (containing hundreds of billions of galaxies, each of them containing hundreds of billions of stars) is but one of many Universes - billions of them, perhaps. Perhaps an infinite amount. As you see above, this theory posits that black holes are actually conduits which feed energy into another Universe - everytime a black hole is created in our Universe, in other words, this is in fact the birth of a new Universe, in a new dimension. Our Universe was in turn created by a black hole in another Universe. And this would go on and on and on.... forever.

Here's another view:

As you see here, in this view, there are multiple Multiverses branching out - such that there might be an infinite amount of Multiverses out there, each one representing an entirely separate dimension of spacetime, each perhaps with their own, unique physics. Here's another view of the same theory:

Same idea - each link from one "bubble" universe is a black hole which created the new Universe. Again, there's no end to the number of these "bubbles". Perhaps it looks like this:

Think of it - the scale of it all. This might be the higher dimension we exist in, with our entire Universe but one small bubble amongst an infinite and ever growing dimension of bubbles, each a Universe in its own right.


That's one theory of the Multiverse, in a nutshell - Black Holes in all of them create new bubble Universes, which in turn develop Black Holes that thusly create yet another new Universe, and so on till the depths of infinity. There is another, similar, theory, however, called "Membrane Theory", or "M Theory". Here's a pictorial representation of the theory:

In this theory, rather than Black Holes being the source of creation, it is the impact between two (or more) membranes, floating in a higher dimensional space. Essentially, the Big Bang was the moment of impact, and everything since has been the energy of that impact spreading (expanding) throughout the brane. One could imagine, again, an infinite amount of these membranes, floating along gracefully in a space we literally cannot comprehend, each of them home to their own Universes, or many Universes (perhaps there's multiple impacts on each brane, and each of the impacts is its own Universe).


So, not only do we exist in a Universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies - each of which is beyond our mental comprehension - but our Universe might be one of a billion billion billion other universes, all going about their business. It's a sweeping vision of existence.


That said, I don't see how these theories could be proven - how would you test for the existence of an independent Universe in its own dimension? I can't even guess. But, that's what scientific progress is all about. I'm sure no one could have even conceived of fusion in 1630. Perhaps there's some young genius out there right now, dreaming up some crazy way we could measure the presence of another Universe.


Until then, be sure to enjoy this one.