The idea of ​​the existence of parallel worlds became especially popular after astrophysicists proved that our Universe has a limited size - about 46 billion light years and a certain age - 13.8 billion years.

Several questions arise at once. What lies beyond the boundaries of the Universe? What was there before its emergence from the cosmological singularity? How did the cosmological singularity arise? What does the future hold for the Universe?

The hypothesis of parallel worlds gives a rational answer: in fact, there are many universes, they exist next to ours, they are born and die, but we do not observe them, because we are not able to go beyond the limits of our three-dimensional space, just as a beetle crawling along one side of a paper is not able to leaf, see a beetle located next to it, but on the other side of the leaf.

However, it is not enough for scientists to accept a beautiful hypothesis that will streamline our understanding of the world, reducing it to everyday ideas - the presence of parallel worlds should manifest itself in various physical effects. And this is where the rub arose.

When the fact of the expansion of the Universe was comprehensively proven, and cosmologists began building a model of its evolution from the moment Big Bang to modern times, they faced a number of problems.

The first problem is related to the average density of matter, which determines the curvature of space and, in fact, the future of the world we know. If the density of matter is below critical, then its gravitational influence will be insufficient to reverse the initial expansion caused by the Big Bang, so the Universe will expand forever, gradually cooling to absolute zero.

If the density is higher than the critical one, then, on the contrary, over time the expansion will turn into compression, the temperature will begin to rise until a fiery superdense object is formed. If the density is equal to critical, then the Universe will balance between the two named extreme states. Physicists have calculated the critical density value - five hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. This is close to critical, although according to theory it should be much less.

The second problem is the observed homogeneity of the Universe. Microwave cosmic microwave background radiation in zones of space separated by tens of billions of light years looks the same. If space were expanding from some kind of super-hot singularity, as the Big Bang theory states, then it would be “lumpy,” that is, different intensities of microwave radiation would be observed in different zones.

The third problem is the absence of monopoles, that is, hypothetical elementary particles with a non-zero magnetic charge, the existence of which was predicted by theory.

Trying to explain the discrepancies between the Big Bang theory and real observations, the young American physicist Alan Guth proposed in 1980 an inflationary model of the Universe (from inflatio - “bloating”), according to which at the initial moment of its birth, in the period from 10^-42 seconds to 10^ -36 seconds The Universe expanded 10^50 times.

Since the model of instantaneous “bloating” removed the problems of the theory, it was enthusiastically accepted by the majority of cosmologists. Among them was the Soviet scientist Andrei Dmitrievich Linde, who undertook to explain how such a fantastic “bloating” occurred.

In 1983, he proposed his own version of the model, called the “chaotic” theory of inflation. Linde described a certain infinite proto-universe, the physical conditions of which, unfortunately, are unknown to us. However, it is filled with a “scalar field”, in which “discharges” occur from time to time, as a result of which “bubbles” of universes are formed.

“Bubbles” quickly inflate, which leads to an abrupt increase in potential energy and the emergence of elementary particles, from which matter is then composed. Thus, inflation theory provides justification for the hypothesis of the existence of parallel worlds, like an infinite number of “bubbles” inflating in an infinite “scalar field”.

If we accept inflation theory as a description of the real world order, then new questions arise. Are they different? Parallel Worlds, described by her, from ours or are they identical in everything? Is it possible to get from one world to another? What is the evolution of these worlds?

Physicists say that there can be an incredible variety of options. If in any of the newborn universes the density of matter is too high, then it will collapse very quickly. If the density of the substance, on the contrary, is too low, then they will expand forever.

It is suggested that the notorious “scalar field” is also present inside our Universe in the form of so-called “dark energy”, which continues to push galaxies apart. Therefore, it is possible that a spontaneous “discharge” may occur in our country, after which the Universe will “bloom into a bud”, giving birth to new worlds.

Swedish cosmologist Max Tegmark even put forward a mathematical universe hypothesis (also known as the Finite Ensemble), which states that any mathematically consistent set of physical laws corresponds to its own independent, but very real universe.

If the physical laws in neighboring universes are different from ours, then the conditions for evolution in them may be very unusual. Let's say there are more stable particles, such as protons, in some universe. Then there must be more chemical elements, and life forms are much more complex than here, since compounds like DNA are created from more elements.

Is it possible to reach neighboring universes? Unfortunately no. To do this, as physicists say, you need to learn to fly faster than the speed of light, which looks problematic.

Although the Gutha-Linde inflationary theory is generally accepted today, some scientists continue to criticize it, proposing their own models of the Big Bang. In addition, it has not yet been possible to detect the effects predicted by the theory.

At the same time, the very concept of the existence of parallel worlds, on the contrary, is finding more and more supporters. A careful study of the microwave radiation map revealed an anomaly - a “relict cold spot” in the constellation Eridanus with an unusually low level of radiation.

Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton from the University of North Carolina believes that this is an "imprint" of a neighboring universe from which ours may have been "inflated" - a kind of cosmological "belly button".

Another anomaly, called the "dark stream", is associated with the movement of galaxies: in 2008, a team of astrophysicists discovered that at least 1,400 clusters of galaxies are hurtling through space in a specific direction, driven by mass beyond the visible Universe.

One of the explanations, proposed by the same Laura Mersini-Houghton, is that they are attracted by the neighboring “mother” universe. For now, such assumptions are considered speculation. But, I think, the day is not far off when physicists will dot all the i’s. Or they will offer a new beautiful hypothesis.

Because the Universe is constantly rolling the dice to figure out what will happen next, it does not have a single story, as one might think. On the contrary, the Universe has all possible histories - each with a certain probability... The idea that the Universe has many histories may seem like science fiction, but today it is accepted as scientific fact.

Stephen Hawking "The World in a Nutshell"

Until the twentieth century, there were two main hypotheses about the structure of the world. Religion claimed: our world was created by the will of God (or gods). Science asserted the eternity and infinity of the Universe. But priests and scientists agreed on one thing: our world is one. Doubts about this arose when physicists tried to understand how indivisible particles - atoms - are structured. And a lot of amazing discoveries lay ahead.

Microcosm

Many of our ancestors seriously believed that we all live inside a huge living body with human characteristics. From this it is easy to conclude that a whole universe (microcosm) is hidden inside a person, which lives according to the same laws as the outside world (macrocosm). Therefore, by studying oneself, it was possible to study the surrounding space, including its most remote areas. In early Christianity, the philosopher Origen Adamant said exactly this:

Know that you are another universe in miniature, and that you have the sun, the moon and all the stars.

And if the microcosm is in every way similar to the macrocosm, then there can be not only planets like Earth, but also creatures that inhabit them. In every particle, no matter how small it may be, “there are cities inhabited by people, cultivated fields, and the sun, moon and other stars shine, like ours,” said the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras in the 5th century BC.

In ancient times, the Universe was often imagined as human-like

IN medieval Europe the idea of ​​an inhabited microcosm was treated with more restraint; it became the property of religious mystics and alchemists. But ideas about the parallelism of external and inner worlds flourished during the Renaissance. For example, the famous physician-naturalist Paracelsus declared: “The macrocosm and man are one.” Subsequently, the idea became the property of occultists, theosophists and cosmists, until suddenly it acquired a new meaning in the discoveries of physicists.

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford introduced the public to a "planetary" model of the atom, which resembled solar system- the place of the central luminary was occupied by a positively charged nucleus, and electrons acted as planets. The model was a convention, but the public took it literally and accepted it as proof of the existence of subatomic worlds.

At one time, physicists tried to explain Olbers’ photometric paradox using the “hierarchical hypothesis”: in a stationary Universe, uniformly filled with stars (as was then believed), the brightness of the night sky should be approximately equal to the brightness of the solar disk, which we do not observe. The paradox was later resolved by the Big Bang theory and the concept of an expanding universe.

The "planetary" model proposed by Rutherford is actually far from the real structure of the atom

Science fiction writers also liked the idea. The first novel about the inhabitants of the microcosm, “The Triuneverse,” was published in 1912 by R. Kennedy. True, it does not describe subatomic planets, but an earthly scientist came into contact with an alien from the microworld, who reported that the Universe is structured hierarchically, that is, our planets are atoms within a huge system.

Soon science fiction works appeared, which were combined into a whole direction called “subatomic adventures.” Among them are The World of the Evaporating Drop (1922) by James Barr, The Girl from the Golden Atom (1919) and The Princess on the Atom (1929) by Ray Cummings, Colossus (1934) by David Vendray, The Circle Galaxy ( 1935) by Jack Williamson, "The Unknown" (1952) by Murray Leinster, "Chaos in Miniature" (1952) by Herbert Campbell, "Not Iron" (1957) by James Blish.

Cummings' books about girls who live on atoms

However, when it became known that at the subatomic level the laws of physics differ from the classical ones, stories about shrinking heroes migrated to comics and satire. Those who have seen the film “Men in Black” (1997) probably remember an alien artifact - a keychain, inside of which there is an entire galaxy. In this way, the filmmakers played with the concept of the hierarchical structure of the Universe, which was half-forgotten by that time. The final frames of “Men in Black” show that our universe is just a ball with which the inhabitants of the megaworld play. And at the end of the second part, it turns out that we live in these giants’ closets.

As for the idea of ​​a hierarchical structure of the Universe, oddly enough, it still has supporters. For example, Robert Oldershaw of Massachusetts is developing a model of cosmological self-similarity that allows us to describe galactic interactions using our knowledge of atoms.

Dimensional Edges

Oddly enough, the term “multiverse” (“multiverse”) was proposed not by a physicist, but by the American psychologist William James, meaning by it the plasticity of perception of reality. In the modern sense, that is, as a collection of an infinite number of “parallel” (or “alternative”) worlds, this word was first used by science fiction writer Michael Moorcock in the saga of the Eternal Warrior, which he began in 1970.

Comics based on Moorcock's universe are now published under the title "Multiverse"

However, the hypothesis about the existence of an invisible parallel world arose much earlier and was played up by many authors. After all, it is connected not so much with physics as with religious mythology, within the framework of which the invisible worlds (hell, heaven, heaven, a magical land, a lost place) are perceived as something natural.

This hypothesis penetrated into science fiction thanks to the English theologian Edwin Abbott, who published the book Flatland: A Novel in Many Dimensions in 1884. In it, the two-dimensional intelligent Square traveled through worlds with different numbers of dimensions. Using the example of his adventures, the reader was shown how changes in the surrounding space affect the worldview.

Although the novel went down in history as satirical, the considerations presented in it are still used by physicists to explain the concepts of the multidimensionality of the Universe. In addition, Edwin Abbott demonstrated that the existence of higher dimensions is not an abstraction divorced from life, but a topic containing deep philosophical problems.

The home and family of the protagonist of Flatland

Charles Hinton

Abbott immediately found a like-minded person - mathematician and mystic Charles Hinton, who published his essay “What is the fourth dimension?” back in 1880. Hinton not only studied four-dimensional geometry, but also wrote so-called “scientific novels” (in fact, essays and stories).

Hinton's work influenced the classic science fiction writer H.G. Wells. For example, the story “Stella” (1895), included in the second collection, told about an invisible girl, which could well have prompted Wells to write the novel “The Invisible Man” (1896). And Wells used reasoning about the nature of the fourth dimension from the short story “An Unfinished Connection” (1895), almost word for word in the mouth of the Traveler from “The Time Machine” (1895).

Later, Charles Hinton released several more works in which fantasy was intertwined with scientific logic: “Extracting Yourself” (1904), “The Fourth Dimension” (1904) and a free continuation of Abbott’s book “An Episode in the Life of Flatland, or How the Flat People Discovered the Third Dimension” (1907). In them, he was the first to describe the tesseract - a four-dimensional hypercube, and gave names to the invisible directions of the fourth dimension: kata (Greek “down from”) and ana (Greek “up to”).

The tesseract (or rather, its development in three-dimensional space) in the painting “Crucifixion or Hypercubic Body” by Salvador Dali

Hinton's work was not limited to theorizing. He believed that God differs from man primarily in that he is able to perceive four-dimensional space, and believed that it was possible to achieve a divine state of mind (“higher consciousness”). To do this, he developed a system of mental exercises using polytopes - polyhedra consisting of many multi-colored cubes.

Hinton recruited his wife's sister Alicia Boole, daughter of the famous mathematician George Boole, to work. Although Alicia didn't receive higher education, she was able to develop spatial imagination so much that, according to the recollections of contemporaries, she could imagine any of the main geometric shapes like four-dimensional. She made paper models of polytopes with her own hands.

Alicia Boole's paper polytopes are kept at the Cambridge University Museum

In the twentieth century, Charles Hinton and his tesseract became part of the culture. Jorge Luis Borges often wrote about Hinton. He can be found in Aleister Crowley's occult novel Moonchild (1923) and Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell (1996). The unusual properties of the tesseract were played up by Robert Heinlein - just remember his brilliant story “And He Built Himself a Crooked House” (1941), the first translation of which into Russian appeared in 1944. In Henry Kuttner and Catherine Moore's elegant novella "All the Tenali Borogov..." (1943), the tesseract is among the educational toys that have come to our world from the future.

In modern science fiction, tesseracts are mentioned as artifacts that allow you to move to other dimensions - one of them can be seen, for example, in the Marvel cinematic universe.

Marvel's Tesseract - the magical Space Stone

In 1916, Albert Einstein formulated general theory relativity, according to which gravitational effects are caused by the deformation of the space-time continuum. Thus, time acquired “materiality”, and the hypothetical fourth spatial dimension formally became the fifth.

Science fiction writers quickly responded to new trends. For example, the prolific Murray Leinster released a duology of the stories “Catapult of the Fifth Dimension” (1931) and “Pipe of the Fifth Dimension” (1933). It tells the story of the brilliant physicist Tommy Rimes, who entered a parallel world with the help of a special machine and experienced numerous adventures there. Perhaps the Leinster texts were the first in which the original parallel world, located beyond the boundaries of the dimensions known to us, was described in detail and in detail, as if it really existed.

Inside the Cosmic Tesseract (Interstellar Movie)

However, the further, the more often the fifth dimension became utilitarian: the authors seized on the opportunity to use it when describing superluminal flights. The concept of "hyperspace", "hyperjumps" and "warp engines" arose, with which you can quickly jump from star to star. The term was coined by John Campbell Jr. in his novel Islands of Space (1931); then a similar means of transportation was used in their books by Edward “Doc” Smith, Isaac Asimov, Nelson Bond, Robert Heinlein, Frederic Pohl, Larry Niven and others.

In most cases, "hyperspace" is described as a dark, empty place that must be entered with caution, away from massive objects. The jump itself is often accompanied by a deterioration in the well-being of the crew: dizziness, nausea and other unpleasant effects. Today it is difficult to imagine a novel or film about interstellar flights without an everyday reference to one or another type of “hyperspace”.

Take Star Wars, for example.

Forking Paths

In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges wrote a strange story, The Garden of Forking Paths. Its plot is quite confusing, but it the main idea stated clearly:

Unlike Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a single, absolute time. He believed in the infinity of time series, in a growing, dizzying network of diverging, converging and parallel times. And this outline of times, which come together, branch, intersect, or century after century never touch, contains all imaginable possibilities... Eternally branching, time leads to innumerable options for the future.

So Borges, without knowing it, formulated the foundations of a multiverse model of an infinite number of parallel worlds, identical according to physical laws, but differing in particulars that depend on the momentary choice of a person. The idea looked so crazy that even science fiction writers at that time did not accept it (the only exception was, perhaps, the American Beam Piper, who came up with a cycle about “paratime”).

Hugh Everett

Everything changed when, in 1957, Princeton University graduate Hugh Everett published an article where he substantiated Borges's thought using modern scientific apparatus. The young physicist proceeded from the principle of “incompleteness of quantum mechanics” formulated by Erwin Schrödinger. The essence of the principle is that if we do not observe a particle, then it is in a superposition - a mixture of two states. During observation, a “collapse of the wave function” occurs, and one of the states becomes decisive.

To illustrate his calculations, Schrödinger proposed a famous thought experiment. A certain cat is locked in an impenetrable box along with a “hellish machine”, inside of which there is a Geiger counter and a radioactive substance that can disintegrate any minute. If this happens, the counter will register the decay and give a signal to the hammer, which will break the flask with hydrocyanic acid, and it will instantly poison the cat.

As long as the box is closed, we cannot tell whether the cat is alive or dead. If it's open, we know for sure. Thus, the superposition of the cat will go into one of the possible states.

The fate of the universe depends on the life or death of Schrödinger's cat

But what will happen to the Universe at this moment? Schrödinger came up with an experiment to show the inapplicability of microworld effects on a large scale. Everett suggested that at the moment the box is opened, the Universe will split into two: in one the cat is dead, in the other it is alive.

Since we choose states every second, without even thinking about it, then at every moment the Universe branches into an infinite number of parallel options. We are not able to see this from our four-dimensional world, but if there are many more dimensions, then the picture changes.

John Campbell Jr.'s novel first used the term "hyperspace"

The scientific community rejected Everett's theory. Disillusioned with physics, he took up pure mathematics. However, later he gained followers, and “Everettism” arose - a worldview position according to which the Universe consists of many realizations of conceivable worlds. That is, all possible scenarios for the development of events exist within the framework of the multiverse - quite in the spirit of Borges.

Unlike scientists, science fiction writers accepted the theory with a bang. No wonder - it provided the basis for original plots, especially if you imagine travel between worlds in which history went differently. Today it is impossible to list all the books in which “Everetty” is present in one way or another. Suffice it to recall the most striking: “Worlds of the Imperium” (1961–1990) by Keith Laumer, “The Chronicles of Amber” (1970–1995) by Roger Zelazny, “The Great Crystal” (1970–2006) by Vladislav Krapivin, “The Dark Tower” (1978–2012) Stephen King, The Number of the Beast (1979) by Robert Heinlein, Invasion of the Quantum Cats (1986) by Frederik Pohl, Old Man's War (2005–2015) by John Scalzi, Anathem (2008) by Neal Stephenson.

There are also two popular series in which travel between parallel worlds with different history form the basis of the plot: “Sliding” (1995–2000) and “Beyond” (2008–2013).

Interdimensional vortex from "Slithers"

The topic of alternative worlds is inexhaustible, because the number of options is limited only by imagination, and it allows a lot - even what the real Universe cannot allow.

Steps of Infinity

Russian science fiction writers love parallel worlds, but few of them resort to “Everetty” to substantiate their imagination. The gap was filled by Pavel Amnuel - most of his latest works are devoted to this topic. Under the influence of Everett’s theory, the cycles “Triverse” (2000), “Mysteries of Detective Mann” (2005–2011), the novel “The Road to Elinor” (2004), and the stories “What’s There, Behind the Door?” were written. (2005), “And Lightning Flashed...” (2009), “Clones” (2010).

And recently Amnuel released the volume “The Universe: Steps of Infinity”, published, as indicated in the imprint, in ... 2057. This is a literary apocrypha in the spirit of a science fiction essay, which not only outlines the history of the “Everett” interpretation of quantum mechanics, but also gives a look at the prospects for its development. Amnuel casually, but with knowledge of the matter, comes up with scientists of the future, non-existent scientific disciplines and experiments, and you believe in the described process of cognition. Alas, the book has not yet found a publisher, so you can either check out its online version or order a copy from the author.

Inside the bubble

Everettian still remains a marginal destination. Today, the so-called M-theory dominates, according to which we live in a world with eleven dimensions, including the dimension of time. The foundations of this theory were formulated in the mid-1990s by the American Edward Witten, who also gave it its name. No one can really say why exactly “M”. Different physicists decipher it in different ways: “Mystical”, “Magic”, “Maternal”, “Matrix”, “Membrane” or even “Muddy”.

The theory has not been fully developed, it continues to change, but it allows us to draw some conclusions. The famous Stephen Hawking, discussing M-theory, gives the following analogy (however, in his opinion, quite crude): our Universe is something like a growing bubble of steam in boiling water. Like bubbles, universes appear randomly and, depending on conditions, either grow or collapse, turning into the original “water”.

Maybe the multiverse looks something like this

We cannot yet say what is outside our “bubble”. The first option is that there is nothing there at all that can be felt or registered with instruments. The second option is that the outside world consists of an infinite number of bubble universes that stick together like foam on water. Third, there is a certain external space with its own laws, where growing bubbles of universes float arbitrarily and even sometimes collide.

The latest version received indirect confirmation quite recently. Stephen Feeney and Hiranya Peiris said they found "cosmic bruises" - four ring patterns in the microwave background - in the Big Bang "echoes" that appear as the cosmic microwave background radiation, which seem to indicate that our universe has repeatedly collided with others.

This discovery is still subject to verification, but science fiction writers can now begin to imagine what neighboring worlds look like. The only question is whether the human mind is capable of imagining a world that has nothing in common with ours.

In 2015, astrophysicist Ranga-Ram Chari made a statement that he had obtained interesting data. They may indicate the existence of others. His work was based on an analysis of a map of the cosmic background radiation (CMB) created at the planetary space observatory. It belongs to the European Space Agency. What Chari discovered was a mysterious glowing spot. It could be a “bruise” caused by a collision between our Universe and its alternative.

Most scientists dismiss this idea as "science fiction." But some of them believe that our Universe consists of 7, 11 or more dimensions. And they admit the existence of countless parallel worlds.

Do parallel universes exist?

Some scientists argue that there can be an infinite number of parallel universes. If this is true, then are each of them individual, or are they a mirror image of our Universe? Does someone else exist, or maybe there are thousands of copies of the same person? What are these people like? Are they having fun? Are they rich? Or are they beautiful? And maybe they have money that they can lend me?

Perhaps in some Universes you and I do not exist. Perhaps in one parallel universe, dinosaurs never went extinct. In another, perhaps Hitler won the war. In others, Nixon was never elected president. And NASA was allowed to go ahead with its plans for a base on the Moon and colonization.

Alternate realities

may also cover time. Time and the speed of light slow down in one world and speed up in another. Or, for example, in other worlds time runs backwards. And all the endless futures are already taken. One reality is “you” in the future. And the other “you” is in minutes, or days, weeks, months, years in the future, living your life, which is still ahead for you.

Scientists who study such things theorize that a copy of you may live the same life as you. Or completely different. Anyone reading this article may be a nuclear physicist. But in another reality he could become a pianist. What factor or factors are responsible for such changes or, conversely, similarities? If the other you has all the same perceptions, experiences and skills as the real you, then it seems logical that the other you would do the same. Any divergence will rely on small changes in physical body, perceptions or experiences of that twin.

The possibilities here are endless. One Universe may be the size of an atom, another may be in orbit around an atom or molecule. It can accommodate hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of subatomic galaxies with the same properties. Moreover, our own Universe is relatively atomic design an infinitely large superstructure.

Bubble universes and quantum foam

Quantum theory predicts that, at the subatomic level, the cosmos is a frenzy of subatomic activity involving particles and waves. And what we recognize as reality are just blemishes on the face of this quantum continuum.

Quantum mechanics suggests that in the world subatomic particles all probabilities occur in different places at the same time. Want to be in two places at once? Quantum mechanics says it's possible.

Start existence can be imagined as the seething boiling of a potential universal bubble that appears in the quantum foam of the continuum. When Quantum Appears bubble, it can grow and expand, becoming an expanding stellar universe. Perhaps an infinite number of expanding bubble universes could emerge from the sea of ​​quantum foam.

The Universal Bubble Theory is based on the concept cosmic inflation, proposed by Alan Guth, Alexander Vilenkin and others. The universe we live in is just one bubble among countless bubbles rising from the quantum foam that is the basis for everything that exists.

In the vast sea of ​​quantum space, there may be countless bubbles. But not all of them will exist according to the same rules and under the same physics that governs our world.

11 dimensions

Some of these worlds may be four-dimensional, like ours. While others can fold into seven, eleven or more dimensions. In one bubble universe, you can fly in all directions without restrictions. Whereas in our physics the laws of Newton and Einstein describe such restrictions.

Bubble universes that are close to each other can even stick together. At least temporarily, creating holes and cracks in the outer membrane. If they come together, then perhaps some of the physical materials from one bubble can be transferred to the other. Now you know where the strange material growing inside the refrigerator came from. He's from another dimension.

Scientists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok suggest that there was no Big Bang. Rather, we arose in an endless cycle of cosmic collisions. Possibly associated with alternating bubble Universes. This explains the discovery of researcher Ranga-Rama Chari in 2015 - our Universe could collide with another Universe. Whether this collision was mild is unknown. But based on an analysis of the cosmic background, he discovered mysterious luminous spots. They may be a “bruise” resulting from a collision with a parallel Universe.

Everett's Many Worlds

As theoretical physicist Hugh Everett argued, the universal wave function is “a fundamental entity governed at all times by a deterministic wave equation” (Everett, 1956). Thus the wave function is real and independent of the observer or other mental postulates (Everett 1957), although it is still subject to quantum entanglement.

In Everett's formulation, the measuring device (MA) and the object systems (OS) form a composite system. Until the moment of measurement, it exists in well-defined (but time-dependent) states. The measurement is considered to be the cause of the interaction between MA and OS. Once the OS interacts with the MA, it is no longer possible to describe any system as an independent state. According to Everett (1956, 1957), the only meaningful descriptions of any system are relative states. For example, the relative state of OS given the state of MA or the relative state of MA given the state of OS. As Hugh Everett argued, what the observer sees and the current state of the object are connected by the very act of measurement or observation; they are confused.

However, Everett reasoned that since the wave function appeared to have changed at the time it was observed, then there was no need to actually assume that it had changed. According to Everett, the collapse of the wave function is redundant. Thus, there is no need to include wavefunction collapse in quantum mechanics. And he removed it from his theory, keeping the wave function, which includes the probability wave.

According to Everett (1956), the collapsed state of an object and its associated observer who observed the same outcome were correlated by the act of measurement or observation. That is, what the observer perceives and the state of the object becomes entangled.

However, instead of the collapse of the wave function, the choice is made from a variety of possible options. So among all the possible probable outcomes, the outcome becomes a reality.

There is a world for everyone

Everett argued that the experimental apparatus should be viewed quantum mechanically. Combined with the wave function and the probable nature of reality, this led to the “many worlds” interpretation (Dewitt, 1971). The object of measurement and the measuring apparatus/observer are in two different states, that is, in different “worlds”.

When a measurement (observation) is made, the world unfolds into a separate world for each possible outcome depending on their probability. All probable outcomes exist regardless of how likely or unlikely it is. And each result represents a separate “world”. In each world, the measuring apparatus indicates which outcome is obtained and which probable world becomes reality for that observer (Dewitt, 1971; Everett, 1956, 1957).

Therefore, predictions are based on calculations of the probability that an observer will find himself in a particular world. Once an observer enters another world, he is unaware of other worlds that exist in parallel. Moreover, if he changes worlds, he will no longer know that another world exists (Everett, 1956, 1957): all observations become consistent and even include the memory of a past existence in another world.

Interpretation of "many worlds"

(formulated by Bryce Devitt and Hugh Everett), rejects wave function collapse. Instead, it embraces the universal wave function. It represents a common objective reality consisting of all possible futures. All of them are real, and exist as alternate realities in several Universes. What separates these multiple worlds is quantum decoherence.

The present, future and past are seen as having several branches. Like an infinite number of roads leading to endless outcomes. Thus, the world is both deterministic and indeterministic (this is represented by chaos or random radioactive decay). And there are countless possibilities for the future and the past.

As described by Brice Dewitt (1973; Dewitt, 1971): “This reality, jointly described by the dynamic variables and the state vector, is not the reality we usually think of. It is a reality consisting of many worlds. Due to the temporal development of dynamic variables, the state vector naturally breaks up into orthogonal vectors, reflecting the continuous splitting of the Universe into many mutually unobservable, but equally real worlds, in each of which each measurement gave a certain result, and in most of them the known statistical quantum laws are observed." .

Devitt talks about a many-worlds interpretation of Everett's work. He argues that there can be a split in the unified observer-object system. This is a divisive observation. And each split corresponds to different or multiple possible observational outcomes. Each split is a separate branch or path. "World" refers to one branch and includes full story measurements of the observer relative to that single branch which is a world unto itself. However, each observation and interaction can cause a split or branch in such a way that the combined observer-object wave function changes into two or more non-interacting branches, which can split into many "worlds", depending on which ones are more likely. The splitting of worlds can continue indefinitely.

Since there are countless observable events,

constantly occurring, there is a huge number of simultaneous existing conditions or worlds. All of them exist in parallel, but which can get confused. And this means that they cannot be independent of each other and relate to each other. This concept is fundamental to the concept of quantum computing.

Likewise, in Everett's formulation these branches are not completely separate. They are subject to quantum interference and entanglement. So they can merge rather than separate from each other, thereby creating one reality. But if they split, multiple worlds are created. This leads to the question: what if there is something that separates Are these universes apart? Could it be dark matter?

Multiplayer mathematics

“Mathematics is a tool with which you can describe any event in a way that is completely independent of human perception. I truly believe that there is a universe that can exist independently of me. And it will continue to exist even if there were no people at all,” says Max Tegmark, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It is argued that the theory of mathematical multiverse is the most objective perspective on multiple universes. Proponents of mathematical universes argue that mathematics is not a symbol of physical reality. It only summarizes the existing reality. Numbers are not a separate language that describes real physical things. Numbers are the thing.

The mathematical universe is based on two factors. Firstly, physical world is a mathematical structure. Second, all mathematical structures exist somewhere else. You and I and the cat are symbols of a mathematical structure. Mathematical multiversion requires us to abandon the idea of ​​subjective reality. Reality is not based on our perception of it, and we do not “create our own reality”—at least according to this view. There is a reality independent of our perception. And the way we perceive and communicate this reality is just a shallow human approximation of the ultimate mathematical truth.

From this theory we get the conclusion that our Universe is simply a computer simulator.

Could parallel worlds be responsible for the “lost” mass of our Universe?

Much of the matter in our universe appears to have gone missing. Cosmologists and astrophysicists cannot find it. For example, based on data collected spacecraft The European Space Agency's Planck stated that we only see 4.9% of the Universe. Another 68.3% is made up of dark forces and pure energy, and the remaining 26.8% is reserved for dark matter. Even an ultra-precise 15-month survey of space by the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft could only detect less than 5% of the total. So where is all this mass?

Perhaps the missing substance is safely stored in a parallel Universe...

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Scientists suggest that black holes may be transitions to parallel worlds. This theory is called the theory of worm tunnels or worm tunnels. Physicists around the world agree with her. However, this is so far from the ordinary person. There are suggestions that doors to other worlds exist on Earth. So, on ours there are many so-called anomalous zones. These are places where people especially often disappear, where eyewitnesses regularly observe the appearance of UFOs or unprecedented, strange things. There are hundreds of such zones around the world. Most likely, the so-called spatial windows are located there.
These are, for example, Mountain of the Dead in Sverdlovsk, Windy Enikov in the Czech Republic, Long Pass and Road to Nowhere in the USA, Valley of the Black Bamboo in China, Devil's Glade in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Valley of Ghosts in Demirdzhi (Crimea), Devil's Trap in Italy, Ghost Island Maine in the UK, Thurguilla Valley in France, etc.
If you have enough courage and an adventurous character, you can try to go to one of these zones and try your luck. But is it worth it? After all, the consequences are unpredictable.

Perhaps it is better not to travel anywhere, but to learn to penetrate parallel worlds, developing your perception. Have you ever wondered why all children love fairy tales so much? The fact is that they still remember the worlds they saw before birth. Having been born in our world, they at first cannot get used to life in such a limited range. This is why children see mermaids, brownies and other entities that are in parallel worlds next to ours.
Not only children, but also storytellers, as well as sensitive people who think differently, experience parallel worlds. If you take fairy tales no less seriously than scientific literature, you can gradually find a way to achieve the necessary vibration and open the door to a parallel world. After all, the author who wrote the fairy tale filled it with the energy of the world he described. He emitted vibrations in the rhythm of this world. These vibrations are used to keep the communication channel or wormhole open.

So, in order to penetrate parallel worlds, you must believe in success. In addition, you need to overcome your thirst for profit and the desire to do Evil. All parallel worlds have a mirror axis, so they are similar. To return to our world, we need to restore the previous vibrations.
To make vibrations more subtle and get into a parallel world, you need to strengthen the desire to get there. When concentrating on a dream, time will gradually begin to flow more slowly, this can be understood by the increasing sound of the clock ticking. Then insight will come that will illuminate the brain like a bright flash. After this, two parallel worlds will pass through the person and exchange information.

Parallel Worlds

The idea of ​​a parallel world

Science fiction, in fact, did not invent the idea of ​​​​another world, but borrowed it from mythology. Heaven, Hell, Olympus, Valhalla described in myths - classic examples“alternative universes” that differ from the real world we are used to. Putting the action in alternate world(compared to the description of the future or past of our world) allows you to do without the efforts associated with achieving verisimilitude (a scientific substantiation of a picture of the future or a picture of the past corresponding to historical sources), while providing almost limitless possibilities in constructing necessary for the author"scenes" for the action being described.

Logic of the parallel worlds system

IN large quantities In fantastic works, no explanation of the nature of parallel worlds is given, their existence and properties are simply postulated. However, in many cases an attempt is made in one way or another to logically explain the existence of parallel worlds and the possibility of moving people and objects between them. The following describes the basic logical concepts proposed by science fiction authors.

Other spatial dimensions

It is assumed that the real Universe actually has not three spatial dimensions, but more. After such an assumption, a natural (and mathematically correct) generalization of the concept of “parallelism” is made: if parallel lines can exist in two-dimensional space (on a plane), and parallel lines and planes can exist in three-dimensional space, then it is natural that in four-dimensional space (and more spatial dimensions) space there can be parallel (that is, not intersecting with each other, but at the same time existing, perhaps very close) three-dimensional spaces. Further, it is enough to assume that we, for some reason, cannot directly perceive these “additional” spatial dimensions, and we will get a logically quite harmonious picture of the multiplicity of worlds.

-...Just different dimensions. You've probably heard about the theory of parallel spaces.
- Well, Gleb... this is a naive theory. An old plot hook for children's fantasy stories. And then - this is just a theory, nothing more...
- Actually, why naive? Judge for yourself: if there can be parallel lines and parallel planes, why can’t there be parallel three-dimensional spaces?
Yar shook his head:
- The devil knows... I explained it to myself somehow differently.
- I also tried to explain in different ways. But still, a child’s picture gets stuck in my head: you know, spaces like transparent cubes pressed tightly against each other... And so our mannequin friends, with their explosions and experiments, shifted something, violated something in this crystal lattice. The cubes moved, broke each other, cracks appeared along them... It was into one such crack that the aspiring journalist Gleb Vyatkin was carried here along the rail track...
Vladislav Krapivin. "The Dovecote in the Yellow Glade", Book 3, "The Boy and the Lizard"

In some cases, the world is understood not only as a spatial component, but also as time, which is understood as the fourth dimension. In this case, parallel coexistence of four-dimensional worlds is possible, in each of which time flows in its own way.

Movement between worlds in a multidimensional system can be explained either by the creation of a fundamentally new technology, which makes it possible to move along “additional” coordinate axes, or simply by the fact that different worlds in certain places they intersect or touch (just as lines on a plane or surface in three-dimensional space can touch). By traveling along these additional axes, which cannot be naturally sensed, the traveler can reach worlds that are unreachable and invisible. In one of the first works in the genre of modern science fiction - “The Time Machine” by H. Wells - time in this sense was used as an additional “dimension”. The hero, taking the model of the four-dimensional world from classical physics and the interpretation of time as a spatial dimension, found a way to move in time.

There are many examples where the author creates an additional spatial dimension in which the heroes can travel to reach parallel universes. Douglas Adams, in his latest book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, uses the idea of ​​the possibility of an additional axis in addition to the traditional four dimensions of space and time. However, based on the novel, these are not actually parallel universes at all, but only a model of spanning the extent of space, time, and probability. Robert E. Heinlein, in his book The Number of the Beast, postulated the existence of a six-dimensional universe. In addition to the three spatial dimensions, he used the concept of symmetry to add two new time dimensions, so that there were two sets of three. As with the fourth dimension in H. Wells's The Time Machine, a time-traveling person can transcend these extra dimensions with the right equipment.

Although technically incorrect, the concept of "another dimension" has become synonymous with the concept of "parallel world". Its use has become common in films, television and comics, and much less so in the prose of modern science fiction, even when there is no talk of actual spatial dimensions.

Parallel worlds as a realization of multivariate events

Sometimes the formation of “other worlds” is postulated in situations where a certain event can have more than one possible outcome. An extreme expression of this approach is the picture of the multiverse, in which there is an almost infinite number of worlds, differing from each other in that in them a certain event (at least one) had different outcomes. When accepting such an assumption, it turns out that any possibility in one of the worlds is certainly realized, and our world differs from others only in that one specific set of possibilities has been realized in it.

In other cases, the emergence of parallel worlds is declared to be the result of the actions of time travelers: when someone traveling in a time machine into the past influences some event, changing its outcome, a new universe appears, and further events They are already taking a different path. At the same time, the fate of the traveler can be different: in some cases it is assumed that upon returning back he will find himself in his own time (that is, he will not feel a change in history), in others - the traveler who has changed events will return to the future of the new world he created, disappearing from his native reality.

Some authors admit the possibility of subsequent “joining” of parallel realities: it is assumed that some time after the impact that changed the course of events, the results of this impact can be leveled out - the created parallel world will be equivalent to the original one and will merge with it. The parallel reality turns out to be a kind of “detour” on the road; Having once separated, it exists independently for some time, but then returns to its base. In this case, an interesting consequence arises: it turns out that the past, which we consider unambiguous and unchangeable, can be as multivariate as the future; There may be several versions of the past of the same world, and it is impossible to say which version is correct and which is false.

Don't do nonsense. If you remember your childhood, then you had it, and everything else is useless philosophy. And if one day, instead of one childhood, you remember two or three, so much the better. One does not refuse wealth that comes into one's own hands.
Max Fry. "Chronicles of Echo 2. Lord of Mormora"

Amber

“Crystalline Universe” by Vladislav Krapivin

In Russian science fiction, the most coherent picture of the universe, consisting of many parallel worlds, was built by Vladislav Krapivin in his cycle “In the Depth of the Great Crystal.” According to the ideas of this cycle, the Universe is a kind of multidimensional crystal, in which each face is a separate world, but the fourth dimension (as well as dimensions of higher orders) is not time, but multivariate development. The worlds neighboring on the Great Crystal, as a result, can be strikingly different in appearance, but in essence are of the same type - they are approximately at the same level of economic and social development, the problems and achievements in them are approximately the same.

Hyperspace and parallel worlds

Widely used in science fiction the idea of ​​hyperspace is nothing more than a variant of the idea of ​​a parallel world. The concept of “hyperspace,” used in science fiction, refers to a parallel universe that is used as a means of faster-than-light travel for interstellar travel. The rationale for the existence of this form of hyperspace varies from work to work, but there are two common elements:

1. at least some (if not all) of the objects on the hyperspace world map correspond to objects in our universe, thus providing entry and exit points for travelers.
2. the time to travel between two points in hyperspace is less than the time to travel between similar objects in our universe. This occurs either due to differences in the speed of light, or due to different speeds of time, or because similar objects in hyperspace are closer to each other.

Sometimes the concept of “hyperspace” is used to designate a multidimensional world with additional spatial dimensions. In this model, our three-dimensional universe is represented as being “densed” into some higher spatial dimension, and by moving into this dimension, a ship can cover enormous distances in ordinary space. Since this concept offers a “new dimension”, it no longer fully corresponds to the idea of ​​a parallel world.

Subjects

In a plot sense, the idea of ​​a parallel world can be used in different ways.

Movies

• The Philadelphia Experiment, USA, 2 episodes - about the destroyer Eldridge.
• Deja Vu, USA - a policeman tries to change the past and save the woman he loves, ends up in the past and dies himself.
• The One with Jet Li
• Slithering, USA, 5 seasons, TV series 1995-1999, - Quinn Mallory, physics graduate student discovers the "Holy Grail of Physics" - a journey to parallel measurements the same Earth.
• The Sorcerer is a fantasy series produced in Australia and Poland, as well as its sequel Sorcerer: Land of the Great Dragon.
• Silent Hill is a 2006 film based on the famous Japanese video game Silent Hill.

see also

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