Content about “

multiverse

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If there's a multiverse, then how many of its component universes are like our own?

No one really knows the answer to this question. It's quite possible that there are more than one, in fact there may be infinitely many, popping in and out of existence like bubbles in a bubble bath.

If you like to have your mind blown cosmology is a great field to go into. But is it science?

George Ellis explains why the study of the cosmos poses some very deep questions.

Are there parallel universes? Universes in which, rather than reading this article, you are still asleep; in which you are happier, unhappier, richer, poorer, or even dead? The answer is "possibly". It's a controversial claim but one that has won more and more followers over the last few decades.

Some of the things I overheard at Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday conference did make me wonder whether I hadn't got the wrong building and stumbled in on a sci-fi convention. "The state of the multiverse". "The Universe is simple but strange". "The future for intelligent life is potentially infinite". And — excuse me — "the Big Bang was just the decay of our parent vacuum"?!

This is the first part of the lecture given by Astronomer Royal Martin Rees at Stephen Hawking's birthday symposium.

This is the second part of the lecture given by Astronomer Royal Martin Rees at Stephen Hawking's birthday symposium.

This is an excerpt from Stephen Hawking's address to his 70th birthday symposium which took place on 8th January 2011 in Cambridge.