One Universe in the Multiverse
Most scientists don’t believe that what we know is all there is
The word universe comes from the Old French univers. It’s a special word meant to encompass more than just the world; it describes everything that lies beyond it. The most distant, icy planet, and the unknown stretches of dark matter or the flickers of stars collected in this galaxy and every other. Everything that exists — succulent or awful, temperate or violent — is harbored by that word. So it seems strange to say that there might be more than one universe. How can there be more than one everything?
Well, there’s everything we know, and everything beyond that. Or, in scientific terms, there’s the observable universe and what lies outside of the 46 billion light year window we have in every direction (that’s a 92 billion light year diameter for what we can see). And most scientists do believe there’s much more out there. In fact, it’s difficult to find a theory of physics that doesn’t support the idea of a universe bigger than what we’ve observed. We’re limited by the finite speed of light and, consequently, by how much information can reach our telescopes. But what about the light that can’t reach us — the one past the particle horizon? It could reveal a universe billions of times grander. It could reveal one that’s infinite. This is one of the possible…
