<p>One instance of "many universes" come from interpretation of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics' formalism works surprisingly well, however what it actually means in the real world is not known.</p>

<p>There are several <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics" rel="nofollow">interpretations of the formalism</a>. Interpretation means that different ways of looking at the mathematical phenomenon always gives the same results, thus they can not be distinguished by any known experiment.</p>

<p>One of the interpretation is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation" rel="nofollow">Copenhagen interpretation</a>, the "standard" interpretation, which's main idea is that the properties only become part of reality when they are measured.
Another famouse one is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory" rel="nofollow">Bohm Theory</a>, where is explicitly nonlocal (Events at point A can influence a very distant point B faster than speed of light).
And now, back to your question, there is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation" rel="nofollow">many-worlds-interpretation</a>, which says that everytime a particle in a superposition is measured, the universe splits and in the one unverse it has the first property, and in the second universe it has the second property.</p>

<p>As I said, there is no known way yet to distinguish between those different interpretations via experiments, thus the question cannot be part of physics, but of philosophy.</p>

<p>Multiverse also appear in other speculative contexts in physics. One instance is string theory, where it has been found a decade ago that the theory has $10^{500}$ different solutions. Instead of giving up, string theoretists predicted that all these different implementations exist. That leaded to alot of controversy, people argued that it shows that string theory is <em>not even wrong</em>.</p>

<p>There are other instances where multiverse appear, I would suggest to have a look at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse" rel="nofollow">the corresponding wikipedia page</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-31T00:27:44.170Z
"Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology, and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternate universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternate realities", "alternate timelines", and "dimensional planes," among others."
Jerard Puckett
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-30T19:08:08.850Z
2014-12-30T19:08:08.850Z
Mario Krenn
<p>I watched a program where four astrophysicists were debating this topic. I couldn't fully understand what they were saying but wanted to ask others' opinions on whether there is only one Universe or multiple universes. I believe that there are other universes as well but I can't go along with the theory that we exist in other universes as well because this is just too far-fetched. What do others have to say about this? Also they said that there was no "Big Bang" but instead it was a ball of light that expanded out to form the Universe.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-30T17:58:14.837Z
Any answers to this are going to be totally opinion-based.
HDE 226868
<multiverse>
One Universe or Multiverse?
Peter U
# One Universe or Multiverse?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-12-30)

I watched a program where four astrophysicists were debating this topic. I couldn't fully understand what they were saying but wanted to ask others' opinions on whether there is only one Universe or multiple universes. I believe that there are other universes as well but I can't go along with the theory that we exist in other universes as well because this is just too far-fetched. What do others have to say about this? Also they said that there was no "Big Bang" but instead it was a ball of light that expanded out to form the Universe.

**Tags:** multiverse
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Any answers to this are going to be totally opinion-based.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-12-30. Score: 1

One instance of "many universes" come from interpretation of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics' formalism works surprisingly well, however what it actually means in the real world is not known.

There are several [interpretations of the formalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics). Interpretation means that different ways of looking at the mathematical phenomenon always gives the same results, thus they can not be distinguished by any known experiment.

One of the interpretation is the [Copenhagen interpretation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation), the "standard" interpretation, which's main idea is that the properties only become part of reality when they are measured.
Another famouse one is [Bohm Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory), where is explicitly nonlocal (Events at point A can influence a very distant point B faster than speed of light).
And now, back to your question, there is the [many-worlds-interpretation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation), which says that everytime a particle in a superposition is measured, the universe splits and in the one unverse it has the first property, and in the second universe it has the second property.

As I said, there is no known way yet to distinguish between those different interpretations via experiments, thus the question cannot be part of physics, but of philosophy.

Multiverse also appear in other speculative contexts in physics. One instance is string theory, where it has been found a decade ago that the theory has $10^{500}$ different solutions. Instead of giving up, string theoretists predicted that all these different implementations exist. That leaded to alot of controversy, people argued that it shows that string theory is *not even wrong*.

There are other instances where multiverse appear, I would suggest to have a look at [the corresponding wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse).

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: "Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology, and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternate universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternate realities", "alternate timelines", and "dimensional planes," among others."  

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