Into the Multiverse

Artistic depiction of the multiverse
Image Source: goo.gl/OSt2q

Think back to a time when you wished you could have done something differently. Now what would you do if I told you that it already has happened and you are already living your life with the consequences of that new decision? Everything that could have happened or will happen already has happened.

Enter the theory of a multiverse, the idea that the universe we live in is not the only one that exists. In fact an infinite amount of universes could exist, we just can’t see them. Why can’t we see them? Our universe is about 13.7 billion years old. This means that the observable universe only extends as far as light has traveled in that time (13.7 billion light years) so anything beyond that, we can’t see. If there really are and infinite amount of universes out there, something interesting happens.

There are 10^10^70 different possible states that every molecule in your body can be in. This means that if you could travel to a universe 10^10^70 universes away, you would find a doppelgänger, and exact replica of yourself doing exactly what you are doing. What this also means is that within those 10^10^70 universes, there are also slightly different versions of you. Perhaps in one universe you forgot to take out the trash this morning, or maybe you are a dog in another one.

If an infinite amount of universes exist, that would mean that an infinite amount of exact versions of us exist! Now all you have to do is go find them so you can make them do your work for you. Want to learn more about the multiverse? Visit space.com. 10^10^70 is a very big number, want to see why it is actually very small? Here is a video that explains it.

Into the Higher Dimensions

How many dimensions are there? Most people will say 4: height, length, depth, and time; 3 spatial, and 1 temporal. However there is a theory which stats that there are actually 9 dimensions, 10 if you include the 0^th dimension. My goal here is to explain each dimension and help you understand each of them.

The first concept you absolutely MUST understand is the point-line-plane postulate. This will be easier to explain using the first few dimensions since we are able to visualize them. You start off with a single point of indeterminate size. This is the 0^th dimension. Now take another point somewhere else and draw a line from the first to the second point. This is the 1^st dimension: it has a length but no height or depth. If you draw a second line crossing the first line, you create a plane with height and length but to height, entering the 2^nd dimension. The third dimension is the easiest for us to visualize because it has height length and depth, just like our world, but in order to understand the higher dimensions, you must think of the 3^rd dimension in a different way.

Point-line-plane with a fold

Imagine an ant crawling on a two dimensional newspaper. In order to get the ant to move from one spot on the newspaper to another spot without ever being in between is by folding the 2D newspaper through the next higher dimension (in this case the 3^rd dimension), creating a bridge from one place to another.

If you take these concepts and repeat it, you can start to picture the other dimensions. Point, line, plane, and fold the plane.

So let’s try this starting at the 3^rd dimension. Imagine a 3D snapshot of space in time. The 3^rd dimension becomes a point. Take another 3D point and you can draw a line connecting the two points creating the 4^th dimension, time. This is when things star to get a bit tricky since we only live in 4 dimensions. As we did before, we will now draw another line intersecting the line we just made, creating the 5^th dimension.

Image source: superflux

I know what you must be thinking. How is there another line? Well there are actually MANY lines that branch off from the one we are traveling on, each representing a different version of us. For example, one branch would be a version of us if we skipped school and another would be a version of us if some life altering event never happened.

Following the same pattern from the 0^th to the 3^rd dimension, we will now fold the 5^th dimension through the 6^th dimension. With this concept, we can see ourselves as the ant on the newspaper. If we were able to access the 6^th dimension, we would be able to travel to any point in the 5^th dimension and perhaps enter a world where we were all millionaires.

As I stated before, there are 10 dimensions and we are only on the 6^th. The journey after this becomes much weirder. If you would like to read more about this, leave a comment below and I’ll post about the 7^th through 9^th dimensions. Here is a link to a video explaining the 10 dimensions: goo.gl/nlDUp. He does a great job explaining each dimension in detail. If you don’t have the patience to watch all 100 minutes of it, the first 10 minutes are an overview of all 10 dimensions.

Into the Dark

A black hole devouring a neighboring star
Image Source: SPACE.com

You can’t see them but you know they’re there. Nothing can escape their grasps: not even light. They do not obey our current laws of physics. They are black holes.

Here on Earth, we beat the force of gravity every day. We can lift out legs, we can jump, and we can fly in planes. Now imagine taking the Earth and compressing it down to the size of a marble. As density increases, gravity also increases, and now that all of material on Earth is in a tiny dense packet, the new force of gravity becomes so powerful that nothing can escape, not even light. Scientists believe that black holes are formed by dying stars, or stars which have run out of fuel. The heat generated by nuclear fusion generates massive amounts of pressure, enough to keep the star stable; however once the star begins to cool, the pressure drops and the star begins to collapse in on itself creating a black hole.

At the center of every galaxy is a super massive black hole. Just as the planets of our solar system orbit the sun, all of the stars of a galaxy rotate around this black hole.

At the edge of every black hole is the event horizon, the point of no return, the border at which the gravity is just weak enough for light to escape.

Now what happens to all of the stuff that falls into a black hole? According to a fundamental law of modern physics, no information can be lost. So where does all of this stuff go? What happens if you watch your friend fall into a black hole? What happens if you yourself fall into a black hole?

Stray astronaut falling into a black hole
Image Source: goo.gl/qgTt9

The Answer:

If you are the unfortunate enough to fall into a black hole, you will painlessly cross the event horizon. As you do this, you will be able to see every single event that has ever happened in the universe; your life literally flashes before your eyes. Then, as you get closer to the center of the black hole, you feel yourself getting slowly pulled apart. Let’s just say the end isn’t very pretty.

Now if you are watching your friend fall into a black hole, don’t worry, you won’t see them get pulled into pieces. Instead something strange happens. Your friend starts moving very slowly, so slow that he or she is essentially not moving anymore. This happens because the light bouncing off your friend can no longer escape the black hole; it too slows then stops, freezing your friend at the event horizon.

From this scenario, we can deduce that all of the information sucked in by a black hole does not suddenly vanish. Instead it is plastered all over the event horizon. Just like your friend.

Into the Future

How to build a time machine:

The DeLorean Time Machine from Back to the Future

Alright, let’s start with a topic many of us have pondered at least once in our lives, time travel. Perhaps you have thought of going back in time to change something that has happened. Perhaps you want to travel into the future to see how your life will play out, or perhaps you just want to turn back time so you can finish that assignment.

Well now you can build your very own time machine! Sort of… Here’s how:

Materials:

•         Knowledge of the fundamental concepts of time
•         1 Spaceship (preferably one that travels near the speed of light)
•         1 Stabilized wormhole

There are two main fundamental concepts of time that you must understand in order to start thinking about time travel. One concept of time is that gravity affects time. The other is that the faster you move the slower time moves for you.

Sergei Krikalev: Russian
Cosmonaut and Time Traveler

Using these two concepts, we realize that time travelers are living among us! They’re a special breed of humans called astronauts. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense; they were in space, which has less gravity, and they were moving much faster while orbiting the Earth, thereby slowing down their time. Sergei Krikalev has spent 803 days traveling at 17,000mph in orbit; because of this, he has aged 1/48^th of a second less than everyone on Earth, effectively traveling into the future. While this might seem miniscule, scaled up, the results would be dramatic. If Krikalev was instead traveling on a spaceship traveling at 670 million mph (just under the speed of light) for 1 year, he would return to an Earth which has aged 10 years while he himself has only aged 12 months.

Essentially wormholes from the game Portal

Now if you stabilized a wormhole (basically a tunnel which connects two remote locations like a portal) and put one side on that spaceship while keeping the other on Earth, in one year you would be able to step through that worm hole into the future since the spaceship has already arrived back to earth… just 9 years in the future.

Ok, so long duration time travel might not actually be possible right now, but theoretically it is. While there is no proof of wormholes existing, there is nothing saying that they can’t exist and while a spaceship that travels faster than the speed of light doesn’t exist yet, NASA is working on it. (Scientific article from NASA: goo.gl/ltgxB; Easier to understand article: goo.gl/JXzWr) LETS KEEP OUR HOPES UP!

Into the Light

It comes to us from millions of miles away. It travels faster than anything else in the known universe. We use it to guide us through the night. We’re surrounded by it so much that you would expect us to know everything about it. However light is more than what meets the eye.

Light is a form of radiation, but we can only see a small portion of it; you know, ROYGBIV, the colors of the rainbow?  There are still many forms, such as ultra violet and x-rays, which we cannot see. However, the most interesting things about light are its properties.

Light travels very, very fast: about 300 million meters per second (671 million miles per hour). Nothing in the known universe can travel faster than it. We turn on the light in our room and BAM! the whole room is lit up instantaneously… or is it? Just because something is fast, doesn't mean it’s instantaneous. We just don’t notice the tiny delay. The light which leaves the sun actually takes 8 minutes to reach our eyes here on Earth.  So if the Sun decided to explode one day, we wouldn't know until 8 minutes after it had happened.

Light Split into individual waves through a prism
Image Source: Wikipedia

Another interesting phenomenon of light is the fact that it can act as both a wave AND a particle. When light hits a prism, the prism splits the light and you can see each individual wave as a rainbow. However, when light travels through space, it has to act as a particle because waves can’t travel through a vacuum; they need something to go through, be it something solid, liquid, or gaseous.

A Solar Eclipse
Image Source: NASA

Because light acts as a particle, some cool things can happen. For example, gravity can and does affect it. During a solar eclipse, you can actually see the stars behind the Sun if you have the right equipment because the light from those stars bends around the Sun.

As you can see, light really is more than what meets the eye. When you start asking questions, simple things like light can become more interesting. So the next time you look up into the sky, ask yourself, “Is that star still there? Or did it explode already?”