Introduction Have you ever wondered if you had made a different decision to the one you had made say last year or the year before that? What would life be like now? Parallel Universes are similar to our own but decisions have gone the other way. Some Universes', the changes may be slight, you didn't make a fool of yourself the other night or worst, Nazi Germany won the Second World War. The television series Sliders starring Jerry O'Connel takes this as its theme as they visit different worlds every episode. Parallel Universes is the more common term of these two. Alternate Universe is another term to describe a Multiverse. In an alternate universe, the Earth can be radically different. Harry Turttledove writes a lot of stories based around an alternate world. He talks about aliens gate-crashing the Second World War or weapons of today being used in wars of yesterday. The parallel universe could probably have the same look and feel as this one but something has changed. You might have changed it or someone else might have done. You walk down the street, you turn left, the other parallel universe, you will have turned right. That action will determine the order of things. Also known as the Butterfly Effect, the slightest effect could have the biggest change. In our universe, you were born, in the other universe, your parents might have put off having you, you won't exist there.
Is there Proof? The main evidence of an existance of the multiverse is the activities of particles in Quantum Mechanics. In the early twentieth century, scientists found that when they tried to pin-point the exact location of atomic particles such as electrons, they couldn't. They found that they could be in multiple points at once. They are able to be in many places at once. A theory was put forward was that these particles were swapping between our universe and another universe. That notion was quickly ignored but it came back when scientists started to talk about the String Theory. There is a theory going round that suggests that our universe was created by the collision of two parallel universes. If that is true, that would whilst our universe is reckoned to be about 13.5 billion years old, the Multiverse could be infinitely older.
How to get there? If they exists, how do we get there? The most theory on getting there is with a portal of some kind that punches a hole through time and space. Although there are other suggestions of where they are. Our universe is level zero. Level One says that a parallel universe is a copy of our universe somewhere else in the universe. However it is too far away for us to get to. Our known Universe is 13.5 billion light years across, that means to the get to the edge of the universe, it would take 13.5 billion years to get to travelling at the speed of light. A parallel universe would exist in the same universe but much further out, maybe 100 billion light years away for example. A Level Two theory has the universe living in a giant bubble with other universes living in other bubbles. These bubbles can merge, split and grow thus creating new universes. Level Three is the one we're all more familiar with, the one where universes exist in the same time and space but different different dimensions. It is born out of the fact that some particles can be in the two places at once. Some say that they pop into the other dimension and back again. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle governs this area of physics. Whilst our knowledge finds it hard to believe that it can be in two places at once, the HUP states it must be in two places at once. Level Four parallel universe is one where the universe doesn't exist, the universe didn't form, it is still gas.
What is Super String Theory (SST) ? At the moment this is no one whole unifying theory of everything (TOE), at the moment the sciences of the Big Bang and String Theory don't match up. In the beginning when people started talking about String Theory, they were able to match the two up perfectly. However as more people researched the area, they found that there was no theory that could match them both up. They soon found that there was more than one string theory which destroyed the whole idea of a Theory of Everything. There were five competing string theories, they are known as Type I string theory, Type IIA string theory, Type IIB string theory, heterotic SO(32) (the HO string) theory, and heterotic E8×E8 (the HE string) theory. The SST provides some way in matching the two sciences up. It is a belief that at the heart of everything including atoms are tiny, tiny, miniscure vibratings strings. The science of ST points to there being a strong case for the Multiverse. In it, ST provides answers for 10 of the 11 known dimensions. All the five ST had to be reconciled otherwise all the work they had done would go out the window. According to some scientists there is a competing theory called Supergravity. It is not much different from String Theory except it says that there are 11 dimensions. When scientists experimented by adding the additional theory, they found that all the different competing theories did match up. They found the five different theories were different ways at looking at the same problem. The Supergravity theory came out from cold once more. After a short while, they came up with a theory, called M-Theory which originally stood for Membrane but other people have different ideas on what they stood for. The eleventh dimension intrigued many scientists and so was the rush to investigate or theorize it. The eleventh dimension it has been suggested that there are two membranes inside that dimension. When a scientist was looking into why gravity is the weakest force in nature, it was suggested that this force was coming or going to the eleventh dimension. It was generally accepted that gravity was actually leaking into our universe. When other scientists began looking into his, they found parallel universes. Later on, scientists would eventually tackle the question of the Big Bang. They soon came up with our universe was the result of two parallel universes colliding in the eleventh dimension.
Our Universe, Our Rules In our universe, everything is governed by our rules. Another universe may have a different set of rules. In our universe, people are white, brown and black. In another universe people they could be blue, green or red in colour. Our sky is blue, in their the sky could be green or yellow. Where in our universe, magic is illusions, in theirs, magic is pure magic with dragons, warlocks and such like.
Multiverse in Star Trek The Multiverse first appears in the episode 'Mirror, Mirror' in the original series. The Multiverse is the opposite, the United Space Federation are a war hungry force who leaders use threats and torture to show their authority. Kirk, McCoy and Uhura fall into the other universe through a transporter malfunction. Their alternate equivalent come to our world. Before leaving their universe, Kirk plants seeds of doubt in the mind of Spock. This has an effect on him which ripples through the mirror universe. The alternate federation dematerializes, in effect they no longer go out and attack. They also become less able to defend themselves. In Deep Space Nine, members of the DS9 travel to the mirror universe on a number of ocassions and discover that that universe has fallen to the Alliance ( Klingons and Cardassians ). The worlds in the Star Trek are grim compared to our own.
Multiverse in Farscape When John Crichton travels through a wormhole, he is captured by an Ancient. He sends John through a number of unrealized realities. These are essentially parallel/alternate worlds. In one, the Scarrans have found Earth and have genetically altered people. Another world, John is a Peacekeeper who has to kill Sikozu.
Multiverse in Sliders By far the most well known series based on the principles of the Multiverse is this one. It is dedicated solely to the subject of parallel worlds. It follows four people who travel through a multiverse portal machine. Each episode they have to survive their new world in order to the progress to the next. Amongst the stories are Dinosaurs not being wiped out, Russians have invaded America and the World Wars never happened.
Multiverse in other programmes The television series Friends did a number of What-IF episodes, if the decisions that they had made were the other ones. (The One that Could Have Been, Eps:- 6.15,6.16) For example, what-if Phoebe was still a corporate high flyer. What is Monica was still overweight and Ross was none the wiser about his first wife. In the film Sliding Doors, the principle is the Butterfly Effect, what if something so ever so slight had happened a different way, what would your life be like. One story arc would follow adventures in our universe. The other arc follows what would've happened in another universe. The film isn't aimed at the parallel universe principle but it applies. The third other programme is the cartoon series 'GI JOE/Action Force'. In one episode (Worlds without Ends), the JOES are transported to another dimension, one where COBRA has won. One of the JOES is revealed to be romantically involved with the Baroness who decides to stay to rebuild the resistance.
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