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Imagine if you could find an explanation for everything in the universe … The universe we live in is not the only one. Horizon: Parallel Universe, BBC 2002
They’d be even stranger than Elvis being alive. ibid.
The physicists found a second version of it. And then a third. Soon they had found five different string theories. That wasn’t single and it didn’t sound very definitive. String theory had begun to unravel. It seemed as if the dream of a theory of everything was as far away as ever. But just as the scientists were about to give up hope, a new and startling discovery would be made. This would inspire them to begin their quest again and force them at last to confront their least popular idea: parallel universes. ibid.
Super-Gravity: String Theory had displaced it. ibid.
Super-Gravity though had been convinced there were exactly eleven dimensions. ibid.
String Theory was in trouble. Its five different versions meant it couldn’t be the all-embracing theory Physics was looking for. Everything it seemed had been tried to save String Theory. Well, almost everything. In a final desperate move, the String Theorists tried adding one last thing to their cherished idea: they added the very thing they had spent a decade rubbishing – the 11th dimension. ibid.
The tiny invisible strings of String Theory were supposed to be the fundamental building blocks of all the matter in the universe. But now with the addition of the eleventh dimension they changed: they stretched and they combined. The astonishing conclusion was that all the matter in the universe was connected to one vast structure: an M-brane. In effect our entire universe is an M-brane. ibid.
When M Theory emerged, [Lisa] Randall and her colleagues wondered if it might provide the explanation – could gravity be leaking from our universe into the empty space of the eleventh dimension? Randall tried to calculate how gravity could leak from our M-brane universe into empty space. But she couldn’t make it work. Then she heard the theory that there might be another M-brane in the eleventh dimension. Now she had a really strange thought: what if gravity wasn’t leaking from our universe but to it? What if it came from that other universe? ibid.
There may be other worlds out there. Where there could be an exact copy of our solar system, our Earth and each one of us. The Universe s3e2: Parallel Universes, History 2008
The universe sits in a sea of parallel universes. ibid.
Remarkably, there may be four types of parallel universe out there: one could exist in exactly the same space that we are in, but it is so far away we cannot see it or reach it. In another scenario, multiple giant universes could exist in giant cosmic soap bubbles adrift in a cosmic sea of giant bubbles. In yet another scenario, many parallel universes occupy the same space and times as our universe, but because they are in different dimensions, they are invisible. In yet another, all the laws of physics are different so everything looks completely different. ibid.
The Wmap seems to show that the universe is flat. ibid.
‘We are children of the bubble.’ ibid. Tegmark
When in the 1980s scientists came up with a lyrical-sounding idea – String Theory – it promised to solve all the mysteries of the universe, including whether or not parallel universes are real. The idea is that all particles are not solid points or dots, as science said they were. Instead, if you could see up close, particles are in fact tiny string-like objects that individually vibrate in various ways ... String Theory has now evolved into M or M-brane Theory. ibid.
The crowning achievement of M Theory came when scientists realised that to make sense of everything, you need to think of the universe as existing in eleven dimensions. M Theory explains how the tiniest as well as the biggest things in the cosmos work. It also proposes that we all live on a giant and energetic M-brane. Our universe is tethered to this wall by extra dimensions ... These M-branes are also very close to each other. ibid.
Dr [Laura] Mersini-Houghton’s idea was to manipulate the mechanics of that wave form with a branch of mathematics called String Theory. It seemed to provide an elegant solution as to why our universe emerged in the first place. Horizon: What Happened Before the Big Bang? 2010
String Theory ... Instead of the seventeen particles of the standard model, everything is made from a single object – an incredibly tiny loop of string. Horizon: How Small is the Universe?
String Theory is underpinned by some fiendishly complex maths ... We live in eleven-dimension hyperspace. ibid.
We don’t know what we are talking about. Many of us believed that string theory was a very dramatic break with our previous notions of quantum theory. But now we learn that string theory, well, is not that much of a break. The state of physics today is like it was when we were mystified by radioactivity. They were missing something absolutely fundamental. We are missing perhaps something as profound as they were back then. David Gross, 23rd Solvay Conference in Physics, Brussels, closing address December 2005
No-one knows if cosmic strings are real, but some physicists think they are out there. Morgan’s Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s1e3: Is Time Travel Possible?
String Theory was developed in the last thirty-five years. Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s1e4: What Happened Before the Beginning? Science 2010
The incredibly strange world of eleven-dimensional space. ibid.
Out of string theory comes M theory. ibid.
String theory says that every single particle of matter and energy in the universe is actually a tiny vibrating string. A string that vibrates not in three dimensions but in nine. Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s2e4: Are There More than Three Dimensions?
In our picture, there was a universe before the Big Bang, very much like our universe today: a low density of matter and some stuff called dark energy. If you postulate a universe like this, but the dark energy within is actually unstable, then the decay of this dark energy drives the two branes together. These two branes clash and then, having filled with radiation, separate and expand to form galaxies and stars.
Then the dark energy takes over again. It’s the energy of attraction between the two branes: It pulls them back together. You have bang followed by bang followed by bang. You have no beginning of time. It’s always been there. Neil Turok
String theory is an attempt at a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating string. Edward Witten
Technically you need the extra dimensions. At first people didn’t like them too much, but they’ve got a big benefit, which is that the ability of string theory to describe all the elementary particles and their forces along with gravity depends on using the extra dimensions. Edward Witten
String theory has the potential to show that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe – from the frantic dance of subatomic quarks to the stately waltz of orbiting binary stars; from the primordial fireball of the big bang to the majestic swirl of heavenly galaxies – are reflections of one, grand physical principle, one master equation. Brian Greene
One of the strangest features of string theory is that it requires more than the three spatial dimensions that we see directly in the world around us. That sounds like science fiction, but it is an indisputable outcome of the mathematics of string theory. Brian Greene
Einstein relentlessly sought a single theory so powerful it would describe all the workings of the universe. Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe I, PBS 2003
String theory says we may be living in a universe ... of eleven dimensions with parallel universes right next door. ibid.
This is the goal of string theory: to unify our understanding of everything. ibid.
With string theory we think we may have found a way to unite our theory of the large and our theory of the small. ibid.
Why does it matter if the two laws that we have are incompatible? Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe II
It’s a triumph of mathematics: with nothing but these tiny vibrating strands of energy. ibid.
So what exactly in Nature sets the values of these twenty constants so precisely? ibid.
String theory says we’re surrounded by hidden dimensions. Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe III
The tiny strings of string theory vibrate and dance in different patterns creating all the fundamental particles of Nature. ibid.
M Theory would go even further demanding yet another spatial dimension bringing the grand total to eleven dimensions. ibid.