If our universe -- the multitudes of galaxies and innumerable stars that make up all we know of existence -- has a boundary, has a shape, what is that shape? Spherical? Saddle-shaped? Is it possible that within the void in which it exists, like a dust mote dancing in a sunbeam, other universes also exist? National Geographic, April 2014, poses these questions in a fascinating article about the ALMA telescope complex constructed on a plateau in the Atacama desert of Chile. Do we live in a multiverse? What came before the big bang? Maybe other big bangs. The uncertainty principle holds that even the vacuum of space has quantum energy fluctuations. Inflation theory says our universe exploded from such a fluctuation -- a random event that, odds are, had happened many times before. Our cosmos may be one in a sea of others just like ours -- or nothing like ours. These other cosmos will very likely remain forever inaccessible to observation, their possibilities limited only by our imagination.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 13:58:34 +0000
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