Epic Gravitational Wave Discovery Points to Existence of Multiple Universes

Scientists have said that the of gravitational waves point to the possibility of multipe universes. Gravitational waves could have infused space itself with a special energy that exerted a repulsive force, causing the universe to balloon faster than the speed of light for a prodigiously violent instant, smoothing out iron out all the wrinkles and irregularities and solving the paradox like why the heavens look uniform from pole to pole.

First discovered by physicist Alan Guth in 1979, the existence of gravitational waves was confirmed by radio astronomers earlier this week who reported that they had seen the beginning of the Big Bang, confrming his hypothesis, known as inflation. Guth is currently the Victor Weisskopf Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.- if confirmed by peer review - could strengthen suspicions that there really are alternate or parallel universes existing alongside ours.

The research, led by John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is among the most significant for years. So far, it seems to confirm the existence of gravitational waves, which are the 'ripples' in space time created in the very first moments after the big bang about 14 billion years ago. Most models of inflation we have today show that different parts of that hyper-dense early universe would have expanded at different speeds, creating "bubbles" of space time which would effectively be cut off from each other, resulting in many bubble universes, co-existing but unable in to interact.

Stanford University theoretical physicist Andrei Linde theorizes that initially the universe was rapidly inflating, being in an unstable energetic vacuum-like state. It became hot only later, when this vacuum-like state decayed. Quantum fluctuations produced during inflation are responsible for galaxy formation. In some places, these quantum fluctuations are so large that they can produce new rapidly expanding parts of the universe. This process makes the universe immortal and transforms it into a multiverse, a huge fractal consisting of many exponentially large parts with different laws of low-energy physics operating in each of them.

Professor Linde, one of the authors of inflationary theory and of the theory of an eternal inflationary multiverse told space.com: "It's possible to invent models of inflation that do not allow [a] multiverse, but it's difficult. Every experiment that brings better credence to inflationary theory brings us much closer to hints that the multiverse is real."

Alan Guth (see his Newton Lecture video below) is quoted in a press conference saying that "there's still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously."

The Daily Galaxy via CfA and Stanford University

Image Credit: Copyright: Science Photo Library

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