I've often wondered and certainly doubted whether our known universe could be the only thing in existence. We've discovered things that are smaller and smaller, so why wouldn't there be larger and larger? Are there universes within the smallest known or yet unknown particles? Is our universe just some small particle in something incomprehensibly larger? Was the Big Bang a common event like the birth of a star? Are there other dimensions? It wasn't too long ago that we assumed our solar system and the stars were the only things around. Now we know there's much, much more. In only recent years we've actually discovered nearly exactly how large and how old our universe is.Is our universe merely one of billions? Evidence of the existence of 'multiverse' revealed for the first time by cosmic map
The first 'hard evidence' that other universes exist has been found by scientists.
Cosmologists studying a map of the universe from data gathered by the Planck spacecraft have concluded that it shows anomalies that can only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes.
The map shows radiation from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago that is still detectable in the universe - known as cosmic microwave radiation.
Scientists had predicted that it should be evenly distributed, but the map shows a stronger concentration in the south half of the sky and a 'cold spot' that cannot be explained by current understanding of physics.
Laura Mersini-Houghton, theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Richard Holman, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, predicted that anomalies in radiation existed and were caused by the pull from other universes in 2005.
Now that she has studied the Planck data, Dr Mersini-Houghton believes her hypothesis has been proven.
Her findings imply there could be an infinite number of universes outside of our own.
She said: 'These anomalies were caused by other universes pulling on our universe as it formed during the Big Bang.
'They are the first hard evidence for the existence of other universes that we have seen.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... c-map.html
It's incredible. Even though we've just discovered exoplanets, hundreds of them, including Earth-like exoplanets, it seems practically trivial and expected nowadays. This was unknown science fiction only several years ago. Imagine what we'll discover years from now.
But here is what has always really blown me away. Bear with me.
First of all, whether there is a god/creator or not, it's both applicable and non-applicable, just to get that out of the way.
We know for a fact that there is what I'll simply call "something": ourselves, physical matter, energy, space, time, belief in a creator... whatever. Even if we don't exist or what we know of doesn't exist, the fact that we perceive it or imagine it proves something exists. If nothing existed then we wouldn't be feeling, seeing, perceiving or imagining anything. There would simply be nothing at all.
So, we know for a fact that something exists. The thing is, nothing can't create something. Therefore, regardless of our lack of understanding about physics, creation, space and time or whatever, something has always existed for absolute infinity.
How is it possible that something has always existed? Something had to come from something else. Where did it come from? There couldn't have been a beginning and there can't be an end, as it is not possible for nothing to ever exist.
The fact that there is something means there could never have been nothing and never can be nothing. Yet it's also impossible that something has always existed. It came from something but couldn't come from nothing.
