Rev. Brian Morse
Brian Morse is a hospital chaplain. He is a member of DÎSCÎ and lives in Independence, Missouri.
Disclaimer: Growing up I “struggled” with math and science in school. Therefore I never really studied it. Recently I’ve been enjoying Science Channel and what-not. As an adult there is no stress of being judged as “getting it” or not.
I am most interested in this notion of a multiverse, or parallel universes. The ramifications for, well, everything is exciting. The part that really opens my mind to new ways of thinking is that every possibility already exists simultaneously.
However, since I’m getting this info on cable TV, I’m curious if the mainstream of the scientific community sees these theories as legit possibilities.
DISCI: Disciples' Institute for Scientific and Cosmological Inquiry 
No, I don’t fall for that. It’s too absurd. It’s like a simple quadratic equation- gives you 2 answers- you figure out the one that makes sense and throw out the imaginary one. These theories are all on paper. Proves we still have a lot to learn. I do think the brain/ mind must work on a quantum level though.
Good question. We’ll figure it out.
Brian–
There’s a great little book by Owen Gingerich, Harvard Astronomer and a devout Mennonite, titled, “God’s Universe.” It’s a collection of the William Belden Noble Lectures sponsored by the Harvard Divinity School, that Gingerich gave in 2005. It’s so good, I was thinking about suggesting that we form a DISCI book club and all read it, then discuss it. (As an aside, Gingerich was the chair of the IAU committee on the Pluto definition in 2006, and his committee’s definition was the one that was rejected).
Since these are “lectures”–they’re more like a sermon in their form–each chapter is very readable and best of all, there’s NO math!
And the answer to your basic question, Brian, about multiverses, is yes. The hot topic in cosmology is multiverses and “brane” theory.
Gingerich also explains in the book why he has decided both Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design are wrong. I won’t spoil what he believes is correct, but I will tell tell you I think he’s got it right, and it was one of the reasons I decided to create DISCI.
David, I think Brian wanted to know if you personally think multiverses might be real. We all know it’s “hot”. What do you think?
Sheesh, I was afraid somebody was going to ask me that question. The difference between “might be” real and “is” real is a huge difference.
My personal answer is “I dunno.” One universe seems plenty to me. And I’m fine with it being big, even infinitely big, and old, and maybe it’s teeming with life and maybe we’re it. A Big Bang from an infinitesimally small singularity creating a whole universe, the product of a God speaking the whole thing into being I find pretty darn clever.
You have to admit, though, an infinitely clever God could just as easily create an infinite number of universes.
Here’s the intriguing part. The newest hominid star, Ardipithecus, is dated about 4.4 million years old. The idea for a multiverse is less than 100 years. It’s intriguing to me, anyway.
The time line kind of looks likes this (and I’d be happy to have an actual astrophysicist or cosmologist correct my chronology and/or my explanation).
Between the time Galileo invented his astronomical telescope in 1609 and the late 1800s, most astronomy was about counting stars and trying to come up with a way to determine how far they were from earth. The Universe and the Milky were considered the same thing. Fuzzy objects like the Andromeda Nebula were believed to be part of the galaxy. Physics, during the same period was focused on discovering the physical laws of how things in nature worked. What we think of as astrophysics, other than spectrographic analysis, didn’t exist.
By the end of the 1800s, telescopes were getting far more sophisticated and a lot bigger, photography had been invented and so it was possible to take long-exposure photos of one spot in the sky and then have computers analyze the data. In this case, the computers were women who were trained in astronomy but were not allowed to use the telescopes because that was man’s work. But nobody could quite figure out what the spiral nebula were. This, despite the “computers” kept churning out data that more and more pointed clearly in the direction of multiple galaxies, but the “experts” running the telescopes just weren’t getting it.
Over in physics, Einstein happened. Relativity over-turned everything. By the 1920s, we might say relativity and the new physics moved the perception of what the universe was forward by a 1000 years.
Astronomers (the non-computer ones), however, were still arguing over whether the Milky Way was an island universe. Then Hubble happened (Edwin, not the space telescope). In the mid-1920s he finally put together the pieces and realized that all those nebula at the edge of the Milky Way were moving away from each other, and at a velocity that meant they were very far away (Andromeda is about 2.5 million light years distant). Ta-da! Red shift! Expanding universe, zillions of galaxies.
The mating of astronomy and physics only started to gain momentum in the 1940s when astronomers and physicists both realized that e=mc2 applied to all the stuff going on in the universe (as well has having the potential of being able to turn the planet into a radioactive wasteland).
When Wilson and Penzias discovered in 1964 the static in their cryogenic microwave receiver was not due to pigeon poop, but the sound of the leftover radiation from the beginning of the universe, astrophysics took off like a shot. Well, not quite; rather, it was a Moon-shot, but by the 1970s, Stephen Hawking and a bunch of other physicist geeks were thinking about stuff like black holes.
In their spare time they were inventing quantum physics–well, actually they were revolutionizing the quantum physics that had been developed in 1930s and 1940s. By Heisenberg, Schwartzchild, and other guys like that.
And then other guys like Leonard Susskind got into the act and started doing some really WEIRD stuff like trying to figure out how the very biggest things in the universe and the smallest work together. You know, the “Theory of Everything.” Then they started arguing about black holes, because they are the weirdest of weird, and everything just got out of hand.
The first suspected black hole, Cygnus X-1, was discovered as an unknown radio source in 1964. It was generally accepted as the first known black hole by 1973. Now there are hundreds known, millions suspected. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way is called Sgr A* (Sagittarius A-Star). The physics of black holes, however, just about killed quantum mechanics. Let’s just say the math didn’t add up.
One thing led to another (it always does), and quantum physicists began to discover things like quarks, and muons, and bosons and in the process more or less got the black hole thing straightened out (Hawking was wrong!). Then there was dark energy, and dark matter. From all that, plus a lot of very complicated math, came “String Theory,” which Susskind defines as “A mathematical theory in which elementary particles are seen as microscopic, one-dimensional strings of energy.” I’m not kidding, I didn’t make this up, Leonard did. And strings are made up of gluons, “the particles that combine to form the strings that bind quarks.” Leonard made up that one, too.
Okay, this is making my brain hurt. Because I don’t have a cotton-picken’ idea what I’m talking about.
But (take a deep breath; calm yourself), there are these things called “branes” short for membrane. And these branes, because of the Holographic Principle, create a surface in space-time where “fundamental” (not fundamentalist) strings can connect. As a result, and this is the grossest of oversimplifications, the math says there can be multiple universes of brane-string-quarks-etc., all existing simultaneously, and in 11 dimensions, by the way, creating a theory of multiverses. And if the Hadron Collider at CERN ever identifies a Higg’s Boson, this will supposedly support everything I just wrote, even though I have no idea what I just wrote.
Yer on yer own, guys. My mind feels like it just crossed the event horizon and is being stretched into mental spaghetti.
Wow. You had me at “I dunno”.
My objection was with infinate universes containing “you and/or me” differing in things like shoe size, number of zits, shirt color or choice of pepsi or coke. I don’t have issues with other universes otherwise.
David Mc–
I personally don’t give much credence to the notion that there are parallel universes in which we exist as variations of ourselves. I suppose you can’t completely rule it out, but it seems more “Star Trek” than star fact. It leads to a lot of silliness, like inventing a machine that would allow you to live in a designer universe. So, okay, the virtual reality geeks are working on that, but what you might end up with is a Matrix-esque world in which every person is living in a different reality, not one highly controlled one. We’re back to science fiction. I have to confess, though, that if I could select a reality where my vision would be perfect so I could be a hot fighter jet jockey, and where I get to keep my hair, it might be tempting…
Fighter jets would be in your “perfect vision of the world”? Want to wiggle out of that one? Hey, my Dad was a radio man in a torpedo bomber and much later a pilot’s license, but I know what you mean.
I saw some being built and was shown through the whole production line a few years and even talked with the actual craftsman as they worked. Anyway, I didn’t see the bombs and bullets. Still cool.
Oh, your literal VISION.
LOL! Nice catch up! Yeah– Sight: 20-20.
As a youngster, I dreamed about being a pilot. Growing up in Boise, a short 40 miles from Mountain Home Air Force Base, a major Strategic Air Command site during the cold war, and later Tactical Air Command, my friends and I would lie in the grass in the backyard and watch B-52s, B-47s, and later Century Class fighters fly training sorties right over the house.
Gowen Field in Boise, (Idaho Air National Guard) flew F-102 Deltas and during Vietnam, F-4 Phantoms. Early on, I remember sonic booms as a fairly regular occurrence. And air raid siren tests. If I remember correctly, one was mounted on the roof of my elementary school.
Of course nobody talked about the fact that had the Cold War gotten hot, Boise and Mountain Home both had Soviet ICBMs with our names on them primed and ready for launch. There are to this day, missile silos in secret locations scattered across the south Idaho dessert.
That still sends a chill or two up my spine.
But the most impressive airplanes were the WWII bombers that had been converted into forest fire retardant aircraft. Boise is the headquarters for the Interagency Fire Bureau: Into the 60s they were still flying B-17s, B-24s and B-25s. The planes took off to the west and then banked right, flying directly over our house at maybe a couple of thousand feet. The noise was incredible! It shook the windows.
It broke my heart when I had to get glasses at the age of 11. Still, I figured out a couple of things useful to do with my life. The Good Lord has made sure the term “bored” has never been a problem! In my heart (that other vision), though, I still would have loved to have learned to fly.
Ever try helium balloons? He, He
I’m more of a C-Class kind of guy. Ar, Ar.
Carbon, Argon? Sorry. Anyway, do you ever check this out? http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Here’s a good description of the visible universe-
Note to the reader: This clip is the original version broadcast on the BBC and contains images that were removed for American television.–DCW, Site Moderator
Oops, sorry. Well, the Nature Channel (or whatever) and grade schools show live births in the US nowadays, so I didn’t consider it sex. Anyway, did you note that “Goddess” had a belly button? Hmmmm.