“You are because you have to be.”
This beautiful and thought-provoking quote comes from physicist Brian Cox in his recent BBC show Human Universe. He is referencing the concept of the “multiverse” as it stems from inflation theory. Developed by Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Paul Steinhardt, and Andy Albrecht, the theory proposes a period of extremely rapid, exponential expansion of the universe prior to the more gradual Big Bang expansion. It’s believed by some that the inflationary expansion continues in different regions of the universe, creating “bubbles” of spacetime that develop into other “pocket universes” resulting in an infinite multiverse.
If there were an infinite number of universes, each with possibly different physical laws (strength of gravity, speed of light, etc), some of these universes would have the combination of laws and fundamental parameters that are suitable for the development of matter, elements, galaxies, stars, planets, life…….us. Perhaps there are an infinite number of copies of you and me where anything that can happen, does. We are already specks in a vast universe but could we be specks in a vast infinity of universes?
Further reading:
http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/outreach/origins/inflation_zero.php
http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_cosmo_infl.html
http://www.space.com/21421-universe-multiverse-inflation-theory.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle(Video Credit: BBC Human Universe, Music by Hans Zimmer, Aquarius Project Simulation from Virgo Consortium | Description credit: NASA, Brian Cox, Alan Guth)
(Source: http://ohstarstuff.tumblr.com/)