First Observational Test of the "Multiverse" 258
An anonymous reader writes "The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles – making up the 'multiverse' – is being tested observationally by UK physicists, who are searching for disk-like collision patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Though CMB is generally thought of as a uniform schmear of radiation extending in all directions in our universe, in fact, they say if a multiverse exists, there ought to be imprints trapped in the muck like footprints of where our universe banged into others."
ansiotropies aren't emperical evidence (Score:0, Interesting)
There is nothing testable about any multiverse hypothesis and nothing being measured here. The.CMB's variability is indistinguishable from noise.
Multiverse "pressure" (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, my 11-year-old son said something kind of interesting last night, on this subject. This month's article in Scientific American is about multiverse theories, and he asked me (paraphrase), "If the universe is contained among a bunch of other universes, and the universe is expanding, isn't it possible that the other universes are exerting pressure on our universe as it's expanding?"
I'd never really thought about that before, and it may be an unanswerable question (along the lines of, "what are the multiverses contain in"), but I thought that was an intriguing thought.