{"id":2856,"date":"2010-04-06T16:13:50","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T20:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=2856"},"modified":"2010-04-07T15:48:30","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T19:48:30","slug":"freaky-physics-proves-parallel-universes-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=2856","title":{"rendered":"Freaky Physics Proves Parallel Universes Exist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fox News has decided that some recent experimental atomic physics work showing that quantum mechanics works as expected (for a sane discussion of the science, see here<\/a>) proves that parallel universes exist and that time travel may be feasible. In an article entitled Freaky Physics Proves Parallel Universes Exist<\/a>, Fox News writer John Brandon develops this idea with help from Sean Carroll and Fred Allan Wolf (aka Dr. Quantum):<\/p>\n

The multi-verse theory says the entire universe “freezes” during observation, and we see only one reality. You see a soccer ball flying through the air, but maybe in a second universe the ball has dropped already. Or you were looking the other way. Or they don’t even play soccer over there.<\/p>\n

Sean Carroll, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology and a popular author, accepts the scientific basis for the multi-verse — even if it cannot be proven. <\/p>\n

“Unless you can imagine some super-advanced alien civilization that has figured this out, we aren’t affected by the possible existence of other universes,” Carroll said. But he does think “someone could devise a machine that lets one universe communicate with another.”<\/p>\n

It all comes down to how we understand time.<\/p>\n

Carroll suggests that we don’t exactly feel time — we perceive its passing. For example, time moves fast on a rollercoaster and very slowly during a dull college lecture. It races when you’re late for work . . . but the last few minutes before quitting time seem like hours.<\/p>\n

Back to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Time seems to be a one-way street that runs from the past to the present,” says Fred Alan Wolf, a.k.a. Dr. Quantum, a physicist and author. “But take into consideration theories that look at the level of quantum fields … particles that travel both forward and backward in time. If we leave out the forward-and-backwards-in-time part, we miss out on some of the physics.”<\/p>\n

Wolf says that time — at least in quantum mechanics — doesn’t move straight like an arrow. It zig-zags, and he thinks it may be possible to build a machine that lets you bend time. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update<\/strong>: Matt Springer has a more detailed analysis of the Fox News article entitled The Worst Physics Article Ever<\/a>. For some reason his critique skips over the multiverse part, implying that that’s the one part of the article that makes sense… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fox News has decided that some recent experimental atomic physics work showing that quantum mechanics works as expected (for a sane discussion of the science, see here) proves that parallel universes exist and that time travel may be feasible. In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multiverse-mania"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2856"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2874,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions\/2874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}