I thought that this article that Shaun Saunders sent me was particularly interesting. A few weeks ago we read his story "Hubble" and we just finished reading Paul Melko's "The Walls of the Universe" both about the effects and possibilities of multiple universes. Good tales both, but your often left thinking that its much too fantastic. Well some scientists seem to feel differently! Here is an excerpt.
IT HAS long been accepted, at least in theory, that other universes might exist and might even collide with ours. Yet the idea that we would ever be able to see the aftermath of such collisions, and so find evidence of other universes, has seemed beyond the scope of science. According to the standard model of cosmology, our universe underwent a phase of exponential expansion, known as inflation, just after the big bang. In theory, inflation could still be happening, with bubbles of space-time suddenly blowing up to create new pocket universes. The usual assumption is that these other universes are disconnected from us, and that we can't enter them and look around, or observe them in any way. "People often criticise discussions of multiple universes as meaningless because we can't detect whether they actually exist," says Anthony Aguirre of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Aguirre thinks the proof of cosmic collisions could be all around us, as imprints in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) left over from the big bang.
click the article title for more. This is very interesting reading especially if you listened to Shaun's Hubble and Paul's The Walls of the Universe.
