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Multiverse and Time
Name: Alex
Status: student
Grade: 9-12
Location: Outside U.S.
Country: Canada
Date: April 4, 2011
Question:
My question involves the multiverse hypothesis. Assuming the
multiverse does in fact exist, does the concept of time exist outside
each universe, or in other words, the "space" between universes. If
time does not exist in this void, how can universes expand into the
void or come into contact with each other? Wouldn't those interactions
require time to take place? Also, would a lack of time imply that we
have a fixed amount of universes in this hypothetical multiverse; an
immense number that will neither grow nor shrink?
Replies:
Alex,
Check out the book "The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos," by Brian Greene (Jan 25, 2011).
The answer to your question and many others are in this book. It is quite readable.
David Kupperman
Alex,
Time is difficult to explain. Space is difficult to explain. Distance
and time are defined with our universe, as part of our universe. Nobody
can say what is beyond. Space might not exist beyond. Although our
universe takes up space within, it might not from the outside. Our
universe might be just energy from the outside, if energy exists
outside. As our language is created by comparison to real objects, we
do not have words for things that do not fit within our universe. We can
have equations. We can compare what these equations yield to real
objects. But if outside is not like anything within the universe,
languages don't have the necessary words.
Time seems to work very much like distance, with one difficulty. Our
minds experience and detect time differently from distance. Consider
walking along a floor but not being able to ever look forward or
backward, and not being able to change how you move. This is kind of
how we "see" time in day-to-day life. We do not really know what it is,
but we know how to measure it and how to make use of it. Time from
outside might be just another distance, all universes existing at all
times, all contacts existing together. It could be that outside there
is no "before" or "after". If we cannot measure outside the universe,
we cannot know.
Dr. Ken Mellendorf
Physics Instructor
Illinois Central College
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Update: June 2012
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