• Question: How many other universes do you think there are?

    Asked by Charlotte to Joe, Jos, Kate, Lisa, Pierre on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Tom Howell.
    • Photo: Kate Dobson

      Kate Dobson answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I have no idea really, but I suspect that there could be an infinite number of universes. What I wonder more about is if we will ever know for sure how many there are.

    • Photo: Pierre Lasorak

      Pierre Lasorak answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Hi
      That’s another good question. You might know that a new particle was discovered recently (2 years ago) called the Higgs boson. Some theoretical model in physics are very sensitive to the mass of the Higgs boson for the prediction of either multiverse (many universes where the physics is different from our universe) or supersymmetry (one universe but in this case we will make many more discoveries soon). The thing is… The mass of the Higgs boson fell right in between these 2 theories. Conclusion: we don’t know!

    • Photo: Joshaniel Cooper

      Joshaniel Cooper answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      The definition of the universe is that it contains absolutely everything. We have never seen from outside our universe, but if we did and there was more than one then I guess we would have to change the name.

    • Photo: Lisa Simmons

      Lisa Simmons answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I’m not the best at astrophysics but I think there could be an infinite amount. In our lifetime we’ll never find out how many there really are.

    • Photo: Joe Reed

      Joe Reed answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      In quantum mechanics, a whole range of outcomes are possible, and the idea of the ‘Many-Worlds interpretation’ is that there is a Universe for each one.
      Imagine rolling a dice, the possibilities are 1,2,3,4,5,6. If we roll a 1 in this Universe, there might be 5 others where the rest of the numbers landed.
      This can happen for any moment of ‘chance’, so there could be an infinite number of Universes.
      I don’t know if this is true, but it’s certainly a very cool idea.

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