Max Tegmark - What Would Multiple Universes Mean?

Is there more than one universe? According to current cosmology, our entire gigantic universe is only one of innumerable universes, each universe like one tiny bubble in a limitless ocean of universes. It's called a 'multiverse' and it radically expands the size of reality. Could multiple universes, the multiverse, be infinite in size? What could this mean?



Max Tegmark is Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a BS in Physics and a BA in Economics from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. He also earned a MA and PhD in physics from University of California, Berkeley.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[matterasmachine]

Very scientific. He could write "God" on that black t-short

[HORNGEN]

The mailman would be like "oh, you mean the one with planets". If so...then I know where you're talking about.

[piehound]

If complexity is in the mind of the beholder . . . then i must be really really really fcuked up. Because the complexity i perceive is overwhelming.

[tekannon]

Let's go one step further and imagine how other universes could exist and where they would be. Wouldn't black holes be the most obvious answer to where a big bang has happened on the other side of the black hole and a new universe was made? This makes sense to me, because it is like night and day, ying yang, good and bad etc. Nature makes a leaf on a tree exactly the thickness it needs to perform its role in photosynthesis and not a millimeter more. Black holes must have a purpose and it makes sense that all matter going into one would concentrate into a tennis ball sized object and explode into a new universe on the other side...

[waldwassermann]

It would be wise if those so-called scientists would read up on the parabel of the blind men and the elephant.

[jeffneptune]

Why so many of these world class cosmologists have jumped on board with the multiverse concept seems puzzling . Most simply accept it because the so called fine tuning seems impossible to explain. Esoteric math and hypothetical objects like "false vacuums" is not proof . To me the multiverse is more metaphysics than physics. It will take a lot of evidence for me to believe there are an infinite number universes exactly like this one and an infinite number of universes with every conceivable variation allowed by physics.

[christopherwall]

This video spoke in circles...I didn't learn anything

[pandoraeeris]

A big mistake people - and Hollywood especially - make is to think that Many Worlds, or multiple universes, means that there are many, distinct, separate, and causally separated worlds.

For example, it's entirely possible that the many worlds in Many Worlds interpretation 'share' things like fundamental particles, much in the same way that a computer game draws on classes of objects in order to create a local instance of that object when a user interacts with it, different "universes" may not use different physical resources, but maybe they all draw on something akin to the Platonic Ideals, where basic objects exist as a an archetype, a class, of that object, and all particular instances of that object are drawing on the same code.

[jonnyjay]

well you know damn well there’s other homies out there with the hundreds of billions of galaxies in our own universe that are chillin out there. There’s probably ancient Egyptian type civiliazations out there and dinosaurs and everything i between just in our own observable universe

[dare-ersw]

It would mean nothing. It's high time to seriously take the near death experience accounts and look deeper into consciousness. Matter is not reality, but our innermost being/awareness is. If NDEs are true which I think they are then the implications are profound and mind boggling. You're pure consciousness and not the body! It may sound absurd but reality doesn't need our approval to be what it is.

[marcv]

Four minutes to tell us: I have no answers sir... but I excel at arm waving.

[Dion_Mustard]

One universe does NOT make sense. Infinite Universes makes PERFECT sense.

[andreedowns]

DONT GIVE ROYAL MAIL ANY EXSCUSES....OR ANYBODY ELSE...ITS NOT JUST A STRAIGHT LINE....ONCE YOU DELIVER BEYOND THE SPEED OF LIGHT ..YOU HAVE PLENTY OF SPACE ???....SELF

[MadebyJimbob]

The moment “another universe” is discerned, it necessarily becomes an aspect of the universe in which it’s discovered.

[mickeybrumfield]

Is reality destined to forever be relative to our perspective?

[garffieldiscool]

I know I'm real and all my friends are photons. They help me navigate my surroundings and keep me from falling through the floor. I am a conscious observer. Does my reality create a mutitude of all possibilities?

[holgerjrgensen]

The 'Life-Unit-Principle', means, 'multiple universes'.
Living beings inside Living beings, inside Living beings, >
'Micro- Medio- and Macro-Cosmos'.

[davidcasagrande]

Everything in the physical plane, " HAS TO BE SOMEWHERE " . No object can be nowhere . Therefore, if one object exists another object MUST exist as a place for that object to be. Because you exist, the room you are in "MUST EXIST " because you cannot be nowhere, and it goes on into infinity . Without end . They should have me on this show

[georgeandrerwwilesmith]

PLEASE update your Spotify channel. It hasn't been updated all year and I rely on it to help me sleep

[wolfeyes]

There's something that kind of bothers me about Multiple Universes.

Let's say a scientist in this Univer focuses a laser on a particular point in space.
Now if there are multiple universes then there is an infinite amount of scientists doing the same thing.

Although i think there is a bit of a paradox in that there would also not be an infinite amount of scientists doing that, it all depends on how you look at it.

Anyway, so these scientists pointing a laser at a particular point in space doing that over multiple universes, wouldn't that create an infinite amount of energy and if so, that would be something we would have detected, wouldn't it?

The idea of multiple universes comes from string theory and string theory is terrible and making predictions.
It doesn't seem like a viable solution to answer many problems.
The other thing with string theory is that it's something you can't prove with observation and so it's like making something up and saying we have it, this answers our questions when we can't even prove the idea to be real in the first place.