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sam_handelman writes "The nytimes has another astrophysics article up. Free subscription etc. It talks about how inflation predicts multiple universes, this week. Dennis Overbye wrote the article, which is nice if lightweight. More info on the theory of inflation. Inflation, which is harebrained on first examination, actually predicts stuff, giving it credibility. Want to be the Right Pinky of God? It may yet be possible."
> 50 years from now high school physics students will laugh at us. "Ha, these idiots believed in all sorts of kooky stuff".
Do today's highschool physics students laugh at the scientists of 50 years ago?
> This theory is just that, a theory.
And that's all a theory is supposed to be.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
universe here means the area of the universe that we can (possibly) see, communicate with, and/or do physics experiments in. Since physics is limited to that region of the universe in which we can do physics experiments, then it is conceivable that there exist regions of spacetime that are inaccessible to us, by virtue of distance or some other parameter.
Whether it is meaningful for physicists to talk amount these regions as _seperate_ universes comes down to what you think universe means, and what the values of the cosmological parameters are this week.
By the very nature of the word, an atom cannot be divided.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
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Some groups of people used to think they were the center of the world(e.g. Zhong Guo==Middle Kingdom)
- Bigger groups used to think that earth was the center of reality and everything literally revolved around humans.(A belief vigorously defended)
- Leewonhoek's microscope revealed a smaller scale of reality than we knew, and it was quite some time before people accepted it.
- Newton's theories seemed to describe how all reality worked until we realized different things were going on at very small and very large scales.
- Now we have a much greater understanding of things at the quantum scale and the universal scale, but it seems obvious that that is not the end of it.
Why do we seem to assume that the scale of reality is finite and coincidentally matches the same scale at which we exist? I think that based upon all of our prior fumblings we would be more likely to conclude that reality extends to a much smaller scale than the quantum and a much greater scale than that of the observible universe; even that it is infinite in both directions.