Parallel Universes Are Real

It's in Scientific American, it must be true. This month's cover story: Parallel Universes. "The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 10²⁸ meters from here." That number's a lot bigger than 10 to the 10^1.42 meters, which are the farthest observable objects in what we call our universe. And anyway, twin or not, anyone outside my light-cone is dead to me. That's just a rule I have. If you're skeptical of the multiverse, go read our discussion of a similar article from two days ago.

I don't know about your eyes

[dunedan]

but I can see a lot farther than 10^1.42 meters

Re:I don't know about your eyes

[UWC]

It's 10^(10^1.42)

Trying to figure out.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The gravitational pull between the two Cowboy Neal's......

So in this universe...

[ath0mic]

Hamburgers eat people
/. loves Microsoft
and I can get a date.

In at least one parallel universe...

[UWC]

...everyone has a goatee.

But Mohammed Al Sahaf says..

[Peter Cooper]

"The infidel alter universe stands no chance. We have it surrounded on all 11 dimensions, and all mercenaries from the alter universe are committing suicide. We will throw them into our black holes. There are definitely no parallel universes in our universe." Did anyone else notice our own Mohammed Al Sahaf here at Slashdot has disappeared for the past three days? I wonder if he's in Syria..

and . . .

[McDrewbie]

in at least one of those universes there is already a duplicate of this post on slashdot.

Ace

[rnicey]

So Captain Ace Rimmer should be turning up any moment now?

Girls in the Perallel Universe

[00RUSS]

What are the odds of me getting a date in this parallel univers? cause i dont want another place where hamburgers eat people and ./ love microsoft if i still cant get a date.

Another me

[Mr Thundercleze]

Could the universe handle 2 of me? This world can barely handle me. Just ask any Best Buy employee within 200 miles of my house.

Thundercleze: I want to buy a computer, but I have no idea about these computer things

BB Employee: Well, you're going to need lots of RAM. I can recomend this model to you

Thundercleze: Does that have SD or DDR ram?

BB Employee: What? but I thought...

Thundercleze: Answer the question

BB Employee: I don't know

Thundercleze: McDonalds fired you and your brothers the manager here isn't he?

BB employee: I feel so ashamed

Re:In at least one parallel universe...

[joe_bruin]

Parallel Universes Are Real, Unless Declared Integer.

If my twin is reading this...

[jeblucas]

If my twin is reading this, but reading it when he's younger (could happen, article says "There are infinitely many other inhabited planets, including not just one but infinitely many that have people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices;" then for crying out loud, make sure you get more than some over-the-sweater action from Amy L. back in what-was-my-1991. She'll go for it.

We will know that we have found it

[cyber_rigger]

when we find a humongous ball of mismatched socks that have traveled through the 4th dimension.

The most unlikely events must take place somewhere

[Danga]

"In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere."

So somewhere out there I am rich, dating Britany Spears, and finally have an infinite supply of beer! Yeah!!!

Re:And, in one of these universes,

[mz001b]

...there's a SLASHDOT where everyone LOVES Microsoft and hates Linux!

yeah, but that site is called ccolonbackslash.com

Networking

[xYoni69x]

We have to hurry up with the switch to IPv6. IPv4 is just not enough for two universes.

Re:Video Game Analogy

[ELiTeUI]

Twould be odd to make that journey for real...
Isn't LSD Great? :)

ELiTeUI

Evil Bill Gates

[SHEENmaster]

"Linus Torvalds is my best friend, through thick and thin, we'll always be together! I like you geeks!", Evil Bill Gates (with a goatee)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:10^10^1.42?

[Peter Cooper]

Just do it yourself using a calculator.

10 ^ 1.42 = 26.302679918953819172897987967726
10 ^ 26.302679918953819172897987967726 = 200761262891390934801701916.81189 metres, or to make it a lot easier to read, 200,761,262,891,390,934,801,701.91681189 Canadian kilometres, or in American dollars, about $2.

Re:Another me

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, that was one of the poorest attempts of comedy I've seen on slashdot. you should be ashamed of yourself.

Re:Probabilities and reality

[mark-t]

There is no such thing as a probability of exactly 1 or exactly 0.

This is a self-contradicting assertion, for if there were no such thing, then that means that the probability of that assertion being false is 0, which would make the statement false.

Logically, probabilities of 1 and 0 exist, somewhere, only they may exist outside our current ability to perceive them.

If I were to take a guess at something having a probability of zero, I'd say it would be something like a statement that was both 100% true and 100% false.

My brain hurts. I'm going to bed.

Re:Scientific Omnirican

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a fairly omni-ish article, but you gotta love the thumbnail pic of the "Multiverse", with the link below it: "Click here for a full-size illustration"

Re:If my twin is reading this...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're really not doing yourself a favor. According to the theory, an infinite amount of you's would've gotten that action anyways and an infinite amount of you's wouldn't have gotten any action (sorry that you were one of those).

But the important thing is that the theory also predicts that an infinite amount of you guys would've also already written this telling your twin what to do. I applaud your cause, but you're drowning in a sea of infinity!

Re:This doesn't make sense

[L0k11]

no, because when your double does come to this universe he is going to kill you in order to make himself more powerful....

hey, someone should make a movie about that... they could call it "the guy who travels into parallel universes to kill himself and get ultimate power"

Obligatory Reference

[TheWanderingHermit]

Let me get this right: So this counts only on probability. Because space is big enough, whatever can possibly happen will happen?

Does that mean if I'm sweeping up a lab after a particularly unsuccessful party and I hook up a improbability generator to a strong brownian motion producer, like, say, a really hot cup of tea, then will I get a really neat spaceship that's shaped like a tennis shoe and piloted by a man with two heads and three arms and has a paranoid android abord with a shooting pain in all the diodes down his left side?

Here's to improbability!

Re:The most unlikely events must take place somewh

[cranos]

So somewhere out there I am rich, dating Britany Spears, and finally have an infinite supply of beer! Yeah!!!

Well two out of three aint bad

Re:If my twin is reading this...

[jeblucas2]

Thanks for the tip.

Re:So in this universe...

[Mike Thole]

No...its a parallel univerise, not a perpendicular one!

Re:Ace

[Anonvmous Coward]

"So Captain Ace Rimmer should be turning up any moment now?"

You bastard, I wanted to be the one to make the obscure Red Dwarf reference. You better hope I catch it at the dupe!

Smoke me a Kipper

[NanoGator]

Maybe there's a really really weird dimension where you're better looking than me!

extrapolation

[Anonymous Coward]

multiple universes are the ultimate gravy ticket for cosmologists. bah!

neither cosmologists, physicists nor mathemeticians ever come to the most simple conclusion, and that is that the fabric of the universe is SIMPLE.... i.e. the ultimate building block is indeed, the simplest of building blocks. not sheets, not donuts, not rippling membranes of goo, but a singular particle which exists on the threshold of reality. i.e. a mass of 1 / infinity... travelling at a velocity of infinity - 1/infinity, making blobs of goo in the void like an electron beam on a phosphor screen makes pictures or barney the dinosaur.

what's that? speed of light you say? it has no existance, so it can go as fast as it wants.

there are two numbers the mind cannot visualise.. zero and infinity, and for all intents and purposes they are the same number with the same properties... not only that, but they are interchangeable.

the universe is actually a sphere, where the surface is also its centre... an infinite dimensional klein bottle. and every particle is the same particle, everywhere at once.

matter, energy and anything else you care to dream up are summations in the oscillation, regions of probable existance. god went dot!

any theoretical reduction of observation or extrapolation of the simplest of ideas is an excersise in self perpetuation and justification.

proving this of course is as futile as the determinacy argument, because as douglas adams hinted, the question and the answer are always mutually exlusive. this is the nature of things.

but i digress.

Re:Acceptable theories

[wayne606]

It's because these theories are so far out that you could only prove or disprove them on paper. The idea of advanced extraterrestrials may be easy to prove (although hard to disprove), which is why millions of dollars a year are being spent on SETI. Nobody calls UFO believers lunatics because they believe in UFO's, but when they make broad claims based on nonexistent evidence they are (rightly) called lacking in scientific rigour.

In psych ward

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! I was put in this psych ward by my family because I said I could communicate telepathically with my double from another universe. They think I'm crazy but now I can show them this article and prove them all wrong!

Thank you Slashdot! You may help get me out of this unjust imprisonment once and for all.

Re:If my twin is reading this...

[breon.halling]

Hey... This is your younger self writing from another universe. I followed your advice and everything was going great. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a snag. Hmm... How can I put this? In your universe, is there a movie called "The Crying Game"?

=)

Re:I don't know about your eyes

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I don't know about your eyes but I can see a lot farther than 10^1.42 meters"

I'm surprised you can see past Uranus!

Re:Girls in the P[a]rallel Universe

[Dr. Photo]

Sorry, they're all busy washing their hair or getting eaten by hamburgers...

Don't scare me like that, damn it!

[ubernostrum]

I'm sitting here, finishing up my thesis which is due next week, happily talking about the argument from design and generally relying on the fact that the multiple-universes model is unverifiable and thus irrelevant to my argument. Then I take a break to glance at Slashdot and what do I see?

Re:I don't know about your eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

Uranus is 26 meters away? Somebody call NASA!

Re:David Deutsch's theory

[LiamQ]

Is there a parallel universe in which you used multiple paragraphs so that people would read your comment completely?

Re:So in this universe...

[radon28]

In Soviet Universe, dead horse beats YOU!

Discworld

[spot35]

In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere.

So the discworld must exist then! Fantastic!

Re:But Mohammed Al Sahaf says..

[imag0]

You mean to tell me there is even a universe where the Iraqi Information Minister told the whole truth all of the time?.
This is obvious proof that multiple universes do indeed exist. He just happened to be in the wrong one. QED.

So you mean...

[IroygbivU]

There really is a universe where Homer is real, obscenely wealthy, AND it rains donuts!?!

Re:Scientific Omnirican

[ubernostrum]

Happily, Nature has slid to where Scientific American was, and is now readable by meer mortals.

I'm waiting for the day when it's readable by meerkats.

Pertinent Futurama Quote

[ari_j]

standing at edge of universe, waving at twins in the next universe over

Fry: So there are an infinite number of parallel universes?
Farnsworth: No, just the two.
Bender: Can we go? I'm sick of parallel universe Bender lording his sombrero over me.

Re:Girls in the Perallel Universe

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I get it: this Anonymous Coward person is actually Oprah.

Re:Don't scare me like that, damn it!

[MalleusEBHC]

Then I take a break to glance at Slashdot and what do I see?

You see a Slashdot article about multiple universes existing, thus substantiating your academic claim that they are unverifiable.

Congrats, it's your lucky day! (Wednesday should repeat your lucky day if all goes as normal.)

Well if the multiverse is real...

[Little Brother]

Where is Sailor Moon? (And can I get her phone number?)

He has a new job

[wowbagger]

Don't worry about Mohammed Al Sahaf - he has a new job now and is settling in nicely.

You can reach him at [e-mail]

Re:Buddhism and science tie together reasonably we

[Joe the Lesser]

Please refer to those terms as 'freedomgebra' and 'freedomgorithm', as we must boycott the enemy's culture.

Thank you
~The House of Representatives.

New Press Release!

[Kibo]

"There is no linux on the internet. No. Never. A thousand times no! Also Torvald is stupid and condemed by Allah. He will roast in the hell, where fire is free. All he can want. Until he commits suicide with Steve Jobs who is not worth my shoe. Hethan infidels, they will have no water in hell, you see. Because they are stupid.... And condemed."

Re:I don't know about your eyes

[LordYUK]

I thought scientists changed the name of Uranus in order to get rid of the bad jokes? I believe they renamed it, Urectum?

The article in 23 year old laymans terms ;-)

[AForwardMotion]

They say that if spaces if infinite with an infinite amount of matter and energy then somewhere in another bubble universe there is someone doing exactly what I'm doing thinking exactly what I'm thinking and oh wait exactly like me. In fact not only is there someone doing all this but there are an infinite amount of me's doing this. Even though the chances of it occuring being 1 in a freaking huge ass inconcievable number due to all the events leading up to me being here writing what I'm writing right now having to be coincidentally EXACTLY the same. But they can be, an infinite amount of times. So in effect I am aware of someone just like me who is aware of me and aware that I am aware of him. Isn't that freaking cool? Not only that but if I pooled my efforts with an infinite amount of me's to do something chances are it would happen given the right resources, which there are an infinite amount of. Unfortunatly we really have no clue if there is an infinite amount of anything. If there is like some believe and we knew about it then one day contact could be made between people exactly the same, thus rending them DIFFERENT. You can't be the same doing exacdtly the same things due to coincidence after you have met that person. If I met another chris (Chris1) and I was Chris2 and we were exactly the same in all our thoughts and actions until that point, once we met that would all change. First off someone would say hi first thus breaking the chain. Anyway I'm getting off on a tangent. Basically if we were aware of eachother we could take steps to find eachother. Say I thought "hey I want another Chris to pick up a cup of coffee". Somewhere in an infinite amount of space and matter another Chris would think "Hey another Chris want's me to pick up that cup of coffee". This gets real crazy but it's actually not only possible but 100% probable. SHIT EH! I wonder if there's a Chris president of Afganistan the most powerful nation in the world. WOOT!

I wrote this in my blog last month and no I didn't really give a hoot about spelling or grammar lol.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[286]

The trouble is that the doubles visiting this universe all happen to be Saddam Hussein's....

Sliders

[boy_afraid]

Can't we take a lesson from television and build a cellphon slider control that creates some sort of wormhole. We can Slide to parallel dimensions.

Re:David Deutsch's theory

[naoursla]

In our universe a meteorite caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. A parallel universe exists in which the meteorite missed Earth, and possibly several others in which the meteorite struck another planet or was not formed at all. In a parallel universe Hitler did not invade Russia and consequently won the Second World War. In yet another, Elvis is still alive.

Weren't those all episodes of "Sliders"?

Re:Multiverse to Nadaverse to Omniverse

[JimFromJersey]

LDS !?!?

Isn't that what Spock did in the 60's?

Re:Multiverse to Nadaverse to Omniverse

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

So what do we do with nada- or onto-technology?

Anything. Everything.

Oh dear. *looks at the sky, and sees donuts falling from it* It's raining again.

Re:Multiverse to Nadaverse to Omniverse

[operagost]

+ 1 Virtual mod points for bringing up the DMCA in a theological discussion :-)

Re:Multiverse to Nadaverse to Omniverse

[fucksl4shd0t]

I think you've watched "The Devil's Advocate" one too many times... :)

Funny you should say that, I've never seen The Devil's Advocate. But if you're interested in overanalysis of a popular Christian country song, read on.... :)

In the song "The Devil Down in Georgia", Charlie Daniels depicts a story that goes something like this:

First, the devil shows up behind on soul-stealing for the quarter (or whatever). So he goes to Georgia and sees a kid playing a fiddle. He challenges the kid to a contest. If the kid wins, he gets a golden fiddle. If he loses, the devil gets his soul. Simple enough. Johnny's the kid's name, of course, and he says "It might be a sin, but I'll take your bet" etc. So, the devil plays, then johnny plays. Johnny, of course, wins, because no matter how powerful, dangerous, and evil the Devil is, he always loses. Upon winning, the Devil gives Johnny the fiddle, and Johnny says "Devil just come on back if you ever wanna try again, I done tol' you once you son of a bitch I'm the best that's ever been."

The Devil makes a deal with the boy. So he makes a promise. It's not gambling, it's a contest of skills, with the most skilled player winning. We hear the Devil play his solo, and it sounds pretty good. We never hear Johnny's solo (although in a live performance, they might play another solo for Johnny), instead we just hear the theme of the song replayed. True to his word, the Devil graciously bows, and hands over the fiddle. In a not-surprising display of poor sportsmanship, Johnny calls him a "son of a bitch" and using some other violently-charged words against the Devil. With humility, however, the Devil does his worst, loses, and leaves. While pride is one of the seven deadliest sins, we don't know if Johnny actually subscribes to them. But we do know that the Devil played fair and stayed true to his word, and was thoroughly mistreated by his opponent.

I like that song. :)