Tag: Multiverse

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Fiction Science Club

Quantum physicist takes aim at the arrow of time

Combo photo of intricate clockwork and portrait of Jim Al-Khalili
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili is the author of "On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick." (Credits: Clockwork photo adapted from Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / Dülmen, Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche, Uhrwerk -- 2019 -- 3054. Al-Khalili image: Princeton University Press. Created under CC BY-SA 4.0 license)

Scientists and philosophers have argued over the nature of time since … well, since time immemorial.

Does time flow unceasingly in one direction? Is our perception of time merely an illusion? Does each instant exist eternally, and are we just running through a sequence of instants like film in a movie projector? And if that’s the case, can we run the film backward? Could we even change what happens in the movie?

In a new book called “On Time” — and in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast — British physicist Jim Al-Khalili lays out what he thinks is the answer to such questions.

What’s his answer? Spoilers ahead …

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Fiction Science Club

Why scientists are mesmerized by the multiverse

Illustration: Visualization of our universe in the multiverse
An artist's conception shows our cosmos amid other universes in the multiverse. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (IPAC)

The multiverse may be a cool (and convenient) concept for comic books and superhero movies, but why do scientists take it seriously?

In a new book titled “The Allure of the Multiverse,” physicist Paul Halpern traces why many theorists have come to believe that longstanding scientific puzzles can be solved only if they allow for the existence of other universes outside our own — even if they have no firm evidence for such realms.

It’s easy to confuse the hypotheses with the hype, but Halpern says there’s a huge difference between the multiverse that physicists propose and the mystical realm that’s portrayed in movies like “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

“Some people accuse scientists of trying to delve into science fiction if they even mention the multiverse,” Halpern says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “But the type of science that people are doing when they talk about the multiverse is real science. It’s far-reaching science, but it’s real science. Scientists are not saying, ‘Hey, maybe we can meet another Spider-Man and attack Kingpin that way.'”

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Fiction Science Club

Why believing in the multiverse isn’t madness

Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." (Marvel Entertainment)

What is the multiverse? The idea that the universe we inhabit is just one of many parallel universes gets a superhero shout-out in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the latest movie based on Marvel comic-book characters.

And in the opinion of Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, giving some screen time to the multiverse isn’t such a bad thing — even if the plot has some horror-movie twists.

“I think it’s really good if some of these ideas are brought out in a variety of different ways,” Greene says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, which focuses on the realm where science and technology intersect with fiction and popular culture.

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