Stephen Hawking's last paper may lead to proof of a multiverse

[Zorro]

Stephen Hawking may have passed away, but his legacy of scientific discovery will live on, and his final paper has the potential to lay the groundwork for one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 21st century. The Sunday Times reports that the paper, entitled “A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation,” details a means by which scientists could discover a parallel universe.

The paper had its latest revisions approved on March 4 — 10 days before Hawking’s death. “A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation” is a mathematical paper that sets out to find proof of multiverse theory, which argues that there are many other universes existing alongside our own.

Thomas Hertog, who co-wrote the paper with Hawking, said that their goal was “to transform the idea of a multiverse into a testable scientific framework,” Business Insider reported. Hertog said that he submitted the latest version of the paper after discussing it with Hawking, in order to ensure he approved of everything.

The paper provides the mathematical calculations that a space probe would need to gather evidence regarding the existence of a parallel universe.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/stephen-hawking-multiverse/

[OhZone]

1. I thought Brian and Stewey already proved that. ha nt

[vercetti2021]

4. It's the Fry hole!

[brush]

2. Is multiverse just another word for what used to be called the universe, aka everything?

[VMA131Marine]

7. Not exactly

In incredibly simplified terms, one of the consequences of String Theory is that there must be an infinite number of universes parallel and separate from our own. If there's an infinite number then it follows that every possibility is played out. So while one universe could be radically different from ours, even having different laws of physics, another may only differ starting with a single event like a decision to turn right instead of left at an intersection. It's not clear if there is even a theoretical mechanism for travelling between these universes, and String Theory itself is only really a hypothesis for how to combine General Relativity (the theory of gravity) with quantum mechanics (the theory of the very small) into a single unified theory.

[BootinUp]

3. There has to be a better universe, paraphrasing Colonel Taylor.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. did he tell us how to send trump/all of the repubs there?

[longship]

8. Remember "Mirror Mirror"?

Everybody in the other universe has a goatee. Of course.

[Binkie The Clown]

6. Using the words "proof" and "science" in the same sentence is heresy.

Science does not deal in proof. Leave that to logic and mathematics where a proof can be reasoned from axioms assumed to be true. Even there the word "proof" means only that if what has been assumed to be true is true then it follows that what has been proven is true. But if the axiom is not "true" then anything "proven" from the axiom is not necessarily true.

[Nitram]

9. You are right, Binkie. Scientists look for evidence, not proof.

I love the way people so enthusiastically embrace a theory that hasn't even been fully developed, not to mention unsupported by evidence. "Has the potential" to "lay the groundwork" for one of the "most important scientific discoveries of the 21st century." How can something be termed a discovery before it's even a full-fledged theory?

[malthaussen]

10. e. e. cummings already knew this.

'pity this busy monster, manunkind'

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

-- Mal