{"id":17928,"date":"2015-08-11T08:17:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T07:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=17928"},"modified":"2015-08-11T08:23:03","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T07:23:03","slug":"exploring-the-multiverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=17928","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the Multiverse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the third time in a week, I attended a one-day course at the City Lit in central London. The previous two courses were on Henry V [my blog posting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=17892\">here<\/a>] and climate change\u00a0[my blog posting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=17901\">here<\/a>], but this latest course could not have been more different. Andrew McGettigan [his slides <a href=\"http:\/\/artgeometry.com\/Multiverse-MorningSlides.pdf\">here<\/a>] and Rich Cochrane [his slides <a href=\"http:\/\/artgeometry.com\/Multiverse-AfternoonSlides.pdf\">here<\/a>] spoke about the notion of the multiverse.<\/p>\n<p>So, what exactly is the multiverse? The relevant <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Multiverse\">Wikipedia page<\/a> offers this definition:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible universes (including the Universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called &#8220;parallel universes&#8221; or &#8220;alternate universes&#8221;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now I confess that I found the course a disappointment. I was looking for a scientific case for the notion of the multiverse, but we had very little actual science except the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/video\/xpv5yr_quantum-mechanics-double-slit-video_tech\">double-slit experiment<\/a> (the relevance of which was not entirely clear). . Also I was hoping for an examination of how the notion has been used in culture &#8211; such as &#8220;His Dark Materials&#8221; trilogy &#8211; as a device to develop character and plot, but \u00a0all we had was a suggestion that Sherlock Holmes actually exists in some universe out there.<\/p>\n<p>I think the problem was that neither of the lecturers was a physicist or a writer; instead both have a background in philosophy and mathematics. I am highly sceptical about the whole notion of the multiverse: I don&#8217;t see how it helps us understand the mysteries of quantum mechanics; I don&#8217;t think there is any meaningful evidence to support it; I don&#8217;t think we have any tests to prove or disprove it; and playing with such concepts can be a slippery slope away from any meaningful sense of truth and reality.<\/p>\n<p>But I could be wrong and, in another universe, another version of Roger Darlington could be laughing at me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the third time in a week, I attended a one-day course at the City Lit in central London. The previous two courses were on Henry V [my blog posting here] and climate change\u00a0[my blog posting here], but this latest course could not have been more different. Andrew McGettigan [his slides here] and Rich Cochrane [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17928"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17951,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions\/17951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}