Parallel Universes Exist - And Could Explain All Physics, Says Physicists


At the upper
levels of complexity, physics — even to physicists - seems to break down into
what essentially comprises a lot of arm waving and confused looks.





But that’s
no reason to give up. As Richard Feynman once said, “it is my task to convince
you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see my physics
students don’t understand it... That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody
does.














And a new
theory based on decades old conjecture might be about to turn your worlds
upside down once again. All of them.






Academics at
Griffith University have published a paper stating that not only are there
infinite parallel universes, but those worlds actually interact with each other
all the time — and that interaction is what makes everything else not make
sense.






The Many
Worlds theory was first proposed in 1957 by Hugh Everett, who said that the
ability of quantum particles to occupy two states seemingly at once could be
explained by both states co-existing in different universes. Instead of a
‘waveform collapse’ in which quantum particles ‘decide’ to occupy one state or
another, they actually occupy both, simultaneously. And a new branch opens up
every time such a ‘decision’ is made.





This theory
has risen in popularity since being initially dismissed, and while it’s still a
subject of intense debate a new paper seeks to move the theory on.





In a new
study, published in the Physical Review X, Professor Howard Wiseman and Dr
Michael Hall from Griffith’s Centre for Quantum Dynamics, and Dr Dirk-Andre
Deckert from the University of California, argue that parallel worlds aren’t
just a bizarre get-out clause for why quantum mechanics is so strange. They
argue that their existence itself explains quantum mechanics.











They argue
that parallel universes are able to repel each other with a subtle force. The
interaction of these Newtonian worlds creates a more complex quantum substructure.







In the
well-known “Many-Worlds Interpretation
”, each universe branches into a bunch of
new universes every time a quantum measurement is made,” said Wiseman to
Phys.org via Griffith University.





All
possibilities are therefore realized – in some universes the dinosaur-killing
asteroid missed Earth. In others, Australia was colonized by the Portuguese.





But critics
question the reality of these other universes, since they do not influence our
universe at all. On this score, our “Many Interacting Worlds” approach is
completely different, as its name implies.





He argues
that our world is just one among many, but that the repulsion between them
leads to the very quantum mechanics that so confuse physicists.





The beauty
of our approach is that if there is just one world our theory reduces to
Newtonian mechanics, while if there is a gigantic number of worlds it
reproduces quantum mechanics
” said Hall.





He suggests
that physicists might even be able to test for the existence of these other
worlds - and that by modelling their existence we might be able to explore new
forms of maths and physics, potentially with practical implications.

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