We can imagine a very large number of possible outcomes that could have resulted from the conditions our Universe was born with. The fact that all 10⁹⁰ particles contained within our Universe unfolded with the interactions they experienced and the outcomes that they arrived at over the past 13.8 billion years led to all the intricacies of our experiences, including our very existence. It is possible, if there were enough chances, that this could occur many times, leading to a scenario that we think of as “infinite parallel Universes” that contain all possible outcomes, including the roads our Universe didn’t travel. (Credit: MUSTAFABULENT / Adobe Stock)
Parallel universes are among the most profound notions in all of quantum physics. It’s a compelling and fascinating idea, but is it true?
The ultimate goal of science, if we were to boil it down to the essentials, is to accurately describe and model reality in the most predictively powerful way possible. When we talk about the question of “what is real,” however, we’re not simply looking at the question of, “can my model make predictions about reality that agree with measurement, observation and experiment?” Instead, we’re asking a more profound series of questions, looking at aspects like:
Is my model of reality self-consistent, or does it have logical flaws?
Does my model of reality maximize our predictive power about what we’re going to measure, or are there limitations to it that are surpassed by alternative models?
Is my model of reality unique as far as its scope and explanatory power goes, or are there other models just as good?
And are all of the predictions of my model able to be tested and validated experimentally or observationally, or are some of them hidden from our view in some fashion?
