Endless space. How many universes exist? Is there a limit to space?

American theoretical physicist Michio Kaku is a well-known popularizer of science, as well as the author of a number of popular science books and films. Some of them are devoted to the theory of superstrings and the views of modern scientists on the existence of parallel worlds and universes. Unlike most retrogrades, "hanging" on outdated dogmas hundred years ago, many modern theoretical physicists consider the existence of parallel worlds and even parallel universes to be a quite probable reality of our world.

And here's what he says about it: Revolutionary progress has changed the whole outlook. Data from space has allowed us to look at cosmology differently. Satellite Data Shows Parallel Universes May Exist

The amazing thing is that there can be 4 types of parallel universes. The first type can exist in the same space as we do. But this universe is so far away that we cannot see or reach it. In another scenario, many other universes may be in giant cosmic "soap bubbles" floating in the cosmic "sea" of giant "bubbles". According to another theory, many parallel universes occupy the same time and space as ours, but since they are in other dimensions, they are invisible. Another theory says that all laws are different and therefore everything looks completely different.

New theories, called string theories, predict the existence of higher-dimensional worlds. Quantum physics at the level of the microcosm also shows that the possibility of parallel universes exists. For simplicity, physicists have divided parallel universes into different levels.

According to physicists, a level 1 parallel universe is just an extension of our universe. The idea of a level 1 parallel universe is based on the fact that our universe is infinite. If it is true, then according to mathematical probability, in infinite space there can be exact copies of our solar system, the planet Earth and all the people on it. If you are planning to go there, we hasten to inform you that the nearest parallel universe of the 1st level is incredibly far away.

But is our universe infinite? New theory an inflating universe suggests that this is the case. This theory answers the question: why, after its appearance, the Universe suddenly grew so much? We believe there is great amount universes of the 1st level. We used to say "universe" meaning that there is only one world. All that is, all that we observe is the Universe.

Now the idea of the Multiverse has appeared, in which there are unseen worlds. Worlds that we can't see and that we can't touch... And that's not all. There are an infinite number of other universes and planets Earth, and an infinite number of copies of all of us. If this is true, then all possible variants of the development of all lives occur simultaneously. In some universes, which some call the "multiverse", your copy lives exactly the same, but in others, everything can be a little different ... Everything that is physically possible happens in another parallel universe. This means that in some universe, Elvis Presley is still alive. In another level 1 universe, George W. Bush is a basketball commissioner. Maybe in some universe we don't exist at all...

The universe appears to be completely flat. And this means that either the Universe is flat, or it is elongated so weakly that we do not see it. In such a case, the universe would eventually bend into itself and form a hypersphere. It would be finite in size and volume, not flat and infinite. It is also possible that the universe has swelled up so quickly and strongly that it only appears to be flat. Imagine yourself in the place of a beetle crawling on a giant ball. How more bead the flatter it seems. The beetle crawls in all directions and says: "The Universe seems to me absolutely flat!". But from the side we see that the beetle is crawling on a giant ball. I tend to believe that the universe is a kind of "soap bubble", but it is so slightly curved that we do not notice it.

Some experts argue that there are other, even more stunning types of parallel universes. These are parallel universes of the 2nd level, consisting of huge cosmic "bubbles" floating in hyperspace. In each separate "bubble" there is a whole universe. The question is: do we live in a giant cosmic "bubble"? Could our Universe be a "megabubble" in a cluster of other "megabubbles"? If a incredible theory about the tier 2 universes is true, the true nature of the cosmos may be even more amazing than we imagined...

According to this paradigm bubble"can form, change and separate. This is a dynamic process. Universes are created from nothing, universes give birth to other universes. Together, these bubbles form a parallel universe of the 2nd level and inside it there are countless parallel universes of the 1st level. The multiverse consists of universes appearing and disappearing, perhaps even colliding with each other.

Why look for parallel universes that we can't touch? Because they keep main secret: they hold the secret of the origin of all things. For the first time in history, we can imagine where our universe came from. Perhaps our Universe appeared after a collision with another parallel universe or "break away" from another universe. These are questions for modern researchers of physics "before the Big Bang", physics "before the emergence".

But there is a problem: for decades, scientists have been trying to find one cohesive "theory of everything" that would unify Einstein's general theory of relativity, which explains gravitational effects. big bodies, with quantum physics, the science of smallest particles. Together, these great theories explain everything that mankind knows so far about the cosmos. But like mice and a cartoon cat, they fight each other. These theories hate each other. How to arrange a "reluctant marriage" between these theories that do not like each other?

When scientists started talking about "string theory" in the 1980s, it seemed that it could solve all the mysteries of the universe. String theory evolved into what is called M-theory or membrane theory. Now we understand that the particles that we observe in nature, and even the Universe itself, are all made up of vibrating membranes and vibrating strings. The main achievement of M-theory occurred when scientists realized that for the absence of contradiction, the Universe must be considered in 11 dimensions.

If you sit on top of a mountain and look down, you see different villages that are not connected by anything. But from the top of the mountain you see a whole, harmonious, beautiful picture. This is M-theory, which explains the work of both the smallest and largest objects in space. It also suggests that we live on a huge energy membrane. Our Universe is connected with this "wall" by additional invisible dimensions...

But that's not all. Scientists have recently shocked the world again, declaring that another kind of parallel universes may exist. Level 4 universes are created either by quantum fluctuations or by membrane collisions. It turns out a special type of universes. In parallel universes of this type, there are no rules we are used to, and the reality is different from what we are used to."

One universe or many?

What does the Universe look like at very large distances, in regions inaccessible to observation? And is there a limit to how far we can look? Our cosmic horizon is defined by the distance to the most distant objects whose light has managed to reach us in the 14 billion years since the Big Bang. Due to the accelerated expansion of the universe, these objects are now already 40 billion light-years away. From more distant objects, light has not yet reached us. So what is there, beyond the horizon? Until recently, physicists gave a very simple answer to this question: everything is the same there - the same galaxies, the same stars. But modern achievements in cosmology and elementary particle physics made it possible to revise these ideas. In the new picture of the world, remote regions of the universe are strikingly different from what we see around us, and may even obey different laws of physics.

The new ideas are based on the theory of cosmic inflation. Let's try to explain its essence. Let's start with overview standard Big Bang cosmology, which was the dominant theory until the discovery of inflation.

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe began with a colossal catastrophe that broke out about 14 billion years ago. The Big Bang did not happen in some certain place Universe, but everywhere at once. At that time there were no stars, galaxies and even atoms, and the Universe was filled with a very hot dense and rapidly expanding clot of matter and radiation. As it grows in size, it cools down. About three minutes after the Big Bang, the temperature dropped enough to form atomic nuclei, and half a million years later, electrons and nuclei combined to electrically neutral atoms and the universe became transparent to light. This allows us today to register the light emitted by the fiery clot. It comes from all directions in the sky and is called cosmic background radiation.

Initially, the fiery clot was almost perfectly homogeneous. But there were still tiny inhomogeneities in it: in some areas the density was slightly higher than in others. These inhomogeneities grew, pulling together everything with their gravity. more substance from the surrounding space, and over billions of years turned into galaxies. And only quite recently, by cosmic standards, we humans appeared on the scene.

There is a wealth of observational evidence in favor of the Big Bang theory, leaving no doubt that this scenario is basically correct. First of all, we see how distant galaxies scatter from us at very high speeds, which indicates the expansion of the Universe. The Big Bang theory also explains the prevalence of light elements in the universe, such as helium and lithium. But the most important evidence, one might say, the smoking barrel of the Big Bang, is the cosmic background radiation- afterglow primary fireball, still allowing it to be observed and explored. Two Nobel Prizes have already been awarded for his study.

So we seem to have a very successful theory. Yet it leaves unanswered some intriguing questions about the initial state of the universe immediately after the Big Bang. Why was the universe so hot? Why did it expand? Why was she so uniform? And finally, what happened to her before the Big Bang?

All these questions are answered by the theory of inflation, which was put forward by Alan Guth 28 years ago.

space inflation

Central to this theory is special form matter, called a false vacuum. In the ordinary sense of the word, vacuum is simply absolutely empty space. But for physicists dealing with elementary particles, vacuum is far from being a complete nothing, but a physical object with energy and pressure, which can be in various energy states. Physicists call these states different vacua, and the properties of elementary particles that can exist in them depend on their characteristics. The connection between particles and vacuum is similar to the connection sound waves with the substance through which they are distributed: in different materials the speed of sound is not the same. We live in a very low energy vacuum, and for a long time physicists believed that the energy of our vacuum is exactly zero. However, recent observations have shown that it has a slightly non-zero energy (it is called dark energy).

Modern theories of elementary particles predict that in addition to our vacuum, there are a number of other high-energy vacuums called false ones. Along with a very high energy, a false vacuum is characterized by a large negative pressure, which is called tension. It's the same as stretching a piece of rubber: there is tension, an inward force that causes the rubber to compress.

But the strangest property of a false vacuum is its repulsive gravity. According to Einstein's general theory of relativity gravitational forces caused not only by mass (that is, energy), but also by pressure. Positive pressure causes gravitational attraction, and negative leads to repulsion. In the case of a vacuum, the repulsive effect of pressure exceeds the attractive force associated with its energy, and the sum is repulsion. And the higher the vacuum energy, the stronger it is.

Also, the false vacuum is unstable and usually decays very quickly, turning into a low-energy vacuum. Excess energy goes to the generation of a fiery clot of elementary particles. It is important to emphasize here that Alan Guth did not invent a false vacuum with such strange properties specifically for his theory. Its existence follows from elementary particle physics.

Guth simply assumed that at the very beginning of the history of the universe, space was in a state of false vacuum. Why did it happen so? Good question, and there is more to say, but we will return to this issue at the end of the article. In the meantime, suppose, following Guth, that the young universe was filled with a false vacuum. In this case, the repulsive gravity caused by it would lead to a very fast accelerating expansion of the Universe. With this type of expansion, which Guth called inflation, there is characteristic time doubling, during which the size of the universe doubles. This is similar to inflation in the economy: if its rate is constant, then prices double in, say, 10 years. Cosmological inflation goes much faster, at such a speed that in a small fraction of a second a tiny area across less than an atom swells to a size larger than the part of the universe that is observable today.

Since the false vacuum is unstable, it will eventually disintegrate, creating a fiery clot, and this is where inflation ends. The decay of the false vacuum plays the role of the Big Bang in this theory. From that moment on, the Universe evolves according to the standard Big Bang cosmology.

From speculation to theory

The theory of inflation naturally explains the features of the initial state, which previously seemed so mysterious. The high temperature is due to the high false vacuum energy. The expansion is due to repulsive gravity, which causes the false vacuum to expand, and the fireball continues to expand by inertia. The Universe is homogeneous because the false vacuum everywhere has exactly the same energy density (with the exception of small inhomogeneities, which are associated with quantum fluctuations in the false vacuum).

When the theory of inflation was first made public, it was accepted only as a speculative hypothesis. But now, 28 years later, it has received impressive observational evidence, most of which is due to cosmic background radiation. The WMAP satellite built a map of the intensity of the radiation for the entire sky and found that the spotted pattern visible on it is in perfect agreement with the theory.

There is another prediction of inflation, which is that the universe should be almost flat. According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, space can be curved, but inflation theory predicts that the region of the universe we observe should be described with high accuracy by flat, Euclidean, geometry. Imagine the curved surface of a sphere.

Now mentally enlarge this surface a huge number of times. This is exactly what happened to the universe during inflation. We can see only a tiny part of this huge sphere. And it appears to be flat just like the Earth when we look at a small area of it. That the geometry of the universe is flat was verified by measuring the angles of a gigantic triangle almost the size of the cosmic horizon. Their sum was 180 degrees, as it should be with flat, Euclidean, geometry.

Now that the data obtained in the region of the Universe we observe have confirmed the theory of inflation, we can trust to some extent what it tells us about regions that are inaccessible to observation. This brings us back to the question we started with: what lies beyond our cosmic horizon?

The world of endless doppelgangers

The answer given by the theory is rather unexpected: although inflation has ended in our part of the cosmos, it continues in the Universe as a whole. Here and there in its thickness, “big explosions” occur, in which a false vacuum breaks up and a region of space similar to ours arises. But inflation will never end completely, in the entire universe. The fact is that the collapse of the vacuum is a probabilistic process, and in different areas it happens at different times. It turns out that the Big Bang was not a unique event in our past. Many "explosions" have happened before and countless more will happen in the future. This never ending process is called eternal inflation.

One can try to imagine what an inflating Universe would look like if you look at it from the side. Space would be filled with a false vacuum and expand very rapidly in all directions. The collapse of a false vacuum is similar to the boiling of water. Here and there, bubbles of low-energy vacuum spontaneously arise. As soon as they are born, bubbles begin to expand at the speed of light. But they very rarely collide, as the space between them expands even faster, making room for more and more bubbles. We live in one of them and see only a small part of it.

Unfortunately, travel to other bubbles is not possible. Even climbing into spaceship and moving at almost the speed of light, we can't keep up with the expanding boundaries of our bubble. So we are its prisoners. From a practical point of view, each bubble is a self-sufficient separate universe that has no connection with other bubbles. During eternal inflation an infinite number of such bubble-universes is generated.

But if you can’t get to other bubble universes, how can you be sure that they really exist? One impressive feature is watching bubbles collide. If another bubble were to hit ours, it would have a noticeable effect on the observed cosmic background radiation. The problem, however, is that bubble collisions are very rare, and it is not certain that such an event has happened within our horizon.

A surprising conclusion follows from this picture of the world: since the number of bubble universes is infinite and each of them expands indefinitely, they will contain an infinite number of regions the size of our horizon. Each such area will have its own history. “History” refers to everything that happened, down to the smallest events, such as the collision of two atoms. The key point is that the number various stories which may take place - of course. How is this possible? For example, I can move my chair one centimeter, half a centimeter, a quarter, and so on: there already seems to be an unlimited number of stories, since I can move the chair in an infinite number of different ways, arbitrarily small distance. However, due to quantum uncertainty stories that are too close to each other are fundamentally impossible to distinguish. Thus, quantum mechanics tells us that the number of different histories is finite. Since the Big Bang, for the region we are observing, it has been about 10 raised to the power of 10150. This is an unimaginably large number, but it is important to emphasize that it is not infinite.

So, limited quantity stories unfold in an infinite number of areas. The inevitable conclusion is that each story repeats itself an infinite number of times. In particular, there are an infinite number of lands with the same stories as ours. This means that dozens of your takes are now reading this phrase. There must also be areas whose histories differ in some way, realizing all possible variations. For example, there are areas in which only the name of your dog has been changed, and there are others where dinosaurs still walk the Earth. Although, of course, in most areas there is nothing like our Earth: after all, there are many more ways to be different from our cosmos than to be like it. This picture may seem somewhat depressing, but it is very difficult to avoid if the theory of inflation is accepted.

Bubbles of the multiverse

Until now, we have assumed that other bubble universes are similar in their physical properties. But that doesn't have to be the case. The properties of our world are determined by a set of numbers called fundamental constants. Among them are the Newtonian gravitational constant, the masses of elementary particles, their electric charges, and the like. In total, there are about 30 such constants, and a completely natural question arises: why do they have exactly the values that they have? For a long time, physicists dreamed that one day they would be able to deduce the values of constants from a certain fundamental theory. But no significant progress has been made along this path.

If you write down the values of known fundamental constants on a piece of paper, they will seem completely random. Some of them are very small, others are large, and there is no visible order behind this set of numbers. However, a system was nevertheless noticed in them, although of a slightly different kind than physicists had hoped to find. The values of the constants seem to be carefully "chosen" to ensure our existence. This observation is called the anthropic principle. The constants seem to be specially fine-tuned by the Creator in order to create a universe suitable for life - this is exactly what supporters of the doctrine of intelligent design tell us about.

But there is another possibility that paints a completely different image of the Creator: he randomly generates many universes, and purely by chance some of them turn out to be suitable for life. Intelligent observers in such rare universes discover marvelous fine-tuning of the constants. In this picture of the world, called the Multiverse, most of the bubbles are barren, but there is no one in them who can complain about it.

But how to test the concept of the Multiverse? Direct observations will not yield anything, since we cannot travel to other bubbles. It is possible, however, as in a criminal investigation, to find circumstantial evidence. If the constants change from one universe to another, we cannot accurately predict their values, but we can make probabilistic predictions. One might ask: what values will the average observer find? This is analogous to trying to predict the height of the first person you meet on the street. It is unlikely that he will turn out to be a giant or a dwarf, so if we predict that his height will be somewhere around the average, we, as a rule, will not be mistaken. Similarly, with the fundamental constants: there is no reason to think that their values in our region of space are very large or small, in other words, they differ significantly from those that most observers in the Universe will measure. The assumption of our non-exclusivity is an important idea; I called it the principle of mediocrity.

This approach has been applied to the so-called cosmological constant, which characterizes the energy density of our vacuum. The value of this constant, obtained from astronomical observations, turned out to be in good agreement with predictions based on the concept of the Multiverse. This was the first evidence of the existence there, beyond the horizon, of a truly colossal eternally inflating universe. This evidence is, of course, indirect, as it could be. But if we're lucky enough to make a few more good predictions, then new picture world can be recognized as proven beyond reasonable doubt.

What happened before the big bang?

Did the universe have a beginning? We have described the infinitely expanding cosmos, giving rise to more and more "big bangs", but we would like to know if the Universe has always been like this? Many people find this option very attractive because it eliminates some difficult questions associated with the beginning of the universe. When the Universe already exists, its evolution is described by the laws of physics. But how to describe its beginning? What made the universe appear? And who gave her the initial conditions? It would be very convenient to say that the universe is always in a state of eternal inflation with no end and no beginning.

This idea, however, runs into an unexpected hurdle. Arvind Bord and Alan Guth proved a theorem which states that although inflation is eternal in the future, it cannot be eternal in the past, which means that it must have some beginning. And whatever it was, we can keep asking: what was before? It turns out that one of the main questions of cosmology - how did the Universe begin? never got a satisfactory answer.

The only way around this problem of infinite regression proposed so far is that the universe could have been spontaneously created out of nothing. It is often said that nothing can come from nothing. Indeed, matter has positive energy, and the law of its conservation requires that in any initial state the energy be the same. However mathematical fact is that a closed universe has zero energy. In Einstein's general theory of relativity, space can be curved and close on itself like the surface of a sphere. If in such a closed universe you move all the time in one direction, then in the end you will return to where you started from, just like you return to starting point by going around the earth. The energy of matter is positive, but the energy of gravity is negative, and it can be rigorously proven that in a closed universe their contributions cancel each other out exactly, so that the total energy of a closed universe is zero. Another conserved value is electric charge. And here, too, it turns out that the total charge of a closed universe must be zero.

If all conserved quantities in a closed universe are equal to zero, then nothing prevents it from spontaneously appearing from nothing. In quantum mechanics, any process that is not forbidden strict laws conservation, with some probability will occur. This means that closed universes should appear from nothing like bubbles in a glass of champagne. These newborn universes may be different size and filled different types vacuum. The analysis shows that the most probable universes have the minimum initial dimensions and the highest vacuum energy. As soon as such a universe appears, it immediately begins to expand under the influence of high vacuum energy. This is how the story of eternal inflation begins.

Cosmology of St. Augustine

It should be noted that the analogy between universes emerging from nothing and champagne bubbles is not entirely accurate. Bubbles are born in liquid, and the universe has no surrounding space. The born closed universe - this is all the available space. Before its appearance, no space exists, just as time does not exist. In the general theory of relativity, space and time are linked into a single entity called "space-time", and time begins its countdown only after the universe appears.

Something similar many centuries ago was described by St. Augustine. He was trying to understand what God did before He created the heavens and the earth. Augustine expressed his thoughts on this problem in wonderful book"Confession". The conclusion he eventually came to is that God must have created time along with the universe. There was no time before that, which means it is pointless to ask what happened before. This is very similar to the answer given by modern cosmology.

You may ask: what caused the universe to emerge from nothing? Surprisingly, no reason is required. If you take a radioactive atom, it will decay, and quantum mechanics predicts the probability of its decay in a certain time interval, say, in a minute. But if you ask why the atom broke up at this particular moment, and not at another, then the answer will be that there was no reason: this process is completely random. Similarly, no reason is required for quantum creation Universe.

The laws of physics that describe the quantum birth of the universe are the same as those that describe its subsequent evolution. This seems to imply that laws existed in some sense before the universe came into being. In other words, the laws do not seem to be descriptions of the universe, but have some Platonic existence apart from the universe itself. We do not yet know how to understand this.

Alexander Vilenkin is director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University (Boston, Massachusetts). He graduated Kharkiv University in 1971, in 1976 he emigrated from the USSR, in 1978 he became a professor at Tufts University. Vilenkin is one of the leading modern cosmologists, the author of the concept of eternal inflation, which appeared as a development of the inflationary cosmology of Alan Guth, with whom he wrote a series scientific works. There is a well-known controversy between Alexander Vilenkin and Stephen Hawking on the question of how exactly the quantum birth of the Universe happened. Vilenkin is a supporter of the anthropic principle, according to which there are many universes and only a few of them are suitable for the life of intelligent inhabitants. Moreover, Vilenkin believes that non-trivial predictions can be obtained from the anthropic principle, which make it possible to confirm the existence of universes inaccessible to observation. Heated discussions were caused by the popular science book by Alexander Vilenkin "The World of Many Worlds: In Search of Other Universes", published on English language. This year it comes out in Russian.

We see the starry sky all the time. Space seems mysterious and immense, and we are only a tiny part of it. vast world, mysterious and silent.

Throughout life, humanity is asked different questions. What is out there, outside our galaxy? Is there something outside of space? And does space have a border? Even scientists have been pondering these questions for a long time. Is space infinite? This article provides information that scientists currently have.

The borders of the infinite

It is believed that our solar system was formed as a result of the Big Bang. It occurred due to the strong compression of matter and tore it apart, scattering gases into different sides. This explosion gave life to galaxies and solar systems. The Milky Way was previously thought to be 4.5 billion years old. However, in 2013, the Planck telescope allowed scientists to recalculate the age of the solar system. Now it is estimated at 13.82 billion years.

The most modern technology cannot cover the entire space. Although the latest devices are able to catch the light of stars that are 15 billion light years away from our planet! They may even be stars that have already died, but their light is still traveling through space.

Our solar system is just a small part of a huge galaxy called the Milky Way. The Universe itself contains thousands of such galaxies. And whether space is infinite is unknown ...

The fact that the Universe is constantly expanding, forming more and more new cosmic bodies, is a scientific fact. Probably her appearance is constantly changing, so millions of years ago, as some scientists are sure, it looked completely different than today. And if the universe is growing, then it definitely has boundaries? How many universes exist behind it? Alas, no one knows this.

Space expansion

Today, scientists say that the cosmos is expanding very rapidly. Faster than they previously thought. Due to the expansion of the Universe, exoplanets and galaxies are moving away from us at different speeds. But at the same time, its growth rate is the same and uniform. It's just that these bodies are at different distances from us. So, the star closest to the Sun "runs away" from our Earth at a speed of 9 cm / s.

Now scientists are looking for an answer to another question. What causes the universe to expand?

Dark matter and dark energy

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance. It does not produce energy and light, but occupies 80% of the space. The presence of this elusive substance in space, scientists guessed back in the 50s of the last century. Although there was no direct evidence of its existence, there were more and more supporters of this theory every day. Perhaps it contains substances unknown to us.

How did the theory of dark matter? The fact is that galactic clusters would have collapsed long ago if their mass consisted only of materials visible to us. As a result, it turns out that most of our world is represented by an elusive, yet unknown to us substance.

In 1990, the so-called dark energy. After all, before physicists thought that the force of gravity works to slow down, one day the expansion of the Universe will stop. But both teams that took up the study of this theory, unexpectedly revealed an acceleration of expansion. Imagine that you are tossing an apple into the air and waiting for it to fall, but instead it starts moving away from you. This suggests that the expansion is influenced by a certain force, which has been called dark energy.

Today, scientists are tired of arguing about whether the cosmos is infinite or not. They are trying to understand what the universe looked like before the Big Bang. However, this question does not make sense. After all, time and space themselves are also infinite. So, let's consider several theories of scientists about space and its boundaries.

Infinity is...

Such a concept as "infinity" is one of the most amazing and relative concepts. It has long been of interest to scientists. In the real world we live in, everything has an end, including life. Therefore, infinity attracts with its mystery and even some mysticism. Infinity is hard to imagine. But it exists. After all, it is with its help that many problems are solved, and not only mathematical ones.

infinity and zero

Many scientists are confident in the theory of infinity. However, the Israeli mathematician Doron Zelberger does not share their opinion. He claims that there is a huge number and if you add one to it, the end result will be zero. However given number lies so far beyond human understanding that its existence will never be proven. It is on this fact that the mathematical philosophy called "Ultra-infinity" is based.

Infinite space

Is there a chance that when adding two same numbers will it be the same number? At first glance, this seems absolutely impossible, but if we are talking about the Universe... According to the calculations of scientists, subtracting one from infinity results in infinity. When two infinities are added together, infinity comes out again. But if you subtract infinity from infinity, most likely, you get one.

Ancient scientists also wondered if there was a limit to the cosmos. Their logic was simple and brilliant at the same time. Their theory is expressed as follows. Imagine that you have reached the edge of the universe. They stretched out their hand beyond its borders. However, the boundaries of the world have moved apart. And so endlessly. It is very difficult to imagine this. But it is even more difficult to imagine what exists beyond its borders, if it really exists.

Thousand worlds

This theory says that the cosmos is infinite. It probably has millions, billions of other galaxies that contain billions of other stars. After all, if you think broadly, everything in our life begins again and again - films follow one after another, life, ending in one person, begins in another.

In world science today, the concept of a multicomponent Universe is considered generally accepted. But how many universes are there? None of us know this. In other galaxies there may be completely different celestial bodies. These worlds are dominated by completely different laws of physics. But how to prove their presence experimentally?

This can be done only by discovering the interaction between our universe and others. This interaction occurs through certain wormholes. But how to find them? One of the latest assumptions of scientists says that there is such a hole right in the center of our solar system.

Scientists suggest that in the event that the cosmos is infinite, somewhere in its expanses there is a twin of our planet, and, possibly, of the entire solar system.

Another dimension

Another theory says that the size of the cosmos has limits. The thing is that we see the nearest one as it was a million years ago. Even further means even earlier. Space is not expanding, space is expanding. If we can exceed the speed of light, go beyond the boundaries of space, then we will fall into the past state of the Universe.

And what lies beyond this notorious border? Perhaps another dimension, without space and time, which only our consciousness can imagine.

Existence of the Big Universe at all times caused a huge number of questions and conjectures and gave birth to many discoveries and hypotheses.

On the edge of the world

When they want to talk about something that is very far from us, they often say:

on the edge of the world.

Where is this the end of the world? Probably, over the many centuries that have passed since the birth of this saying, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe end of the world has changed more than once. For ancient greeks outside the ecumene - inhabited earth- was a tiny area.

Beyond the Pillars of Hercules, "terra incognita", an unknown land, was already beginning for them. They had no idea about China.

The era of the Greats showed that the Earth has no edge, and Copernicus, (more:), who discovered, threw the edge of the world beyond the sphere of fixed stars.

Nicolaus Copernicus - discovered the solar system

Having formulated , he moved it generally to infinity. But Einstein, whose ingenious equations were solved by the Soviet scientist A. A. Fridman, created the doctrine of our Small Universe, made it possible to more accurately determine the edge of the world. He was from us at a distance of about 12-15 billion light years.

Isaac Newton - discovered the law gravity

Einstein's followers clearly stated that no material body can leave the limits of the Small Universe, closed by the force of universal gravitation, and we will never know what is beyond its limits. It seemed that human thought reached the extreme possible limits, and itself comprehended their inevitability. And, therefore, it is not necessary to rush further.

Albert Einstein - created the doctrine of our Small Universe

And more than half a century human thought I tried not to cross the established extreme boundary, especially since even within the limits outlined by Einstein's equations there were quite a lot of mysterious and mysterious things that it made sense to think about.

Even science fiction writers, whose bold flight of thoughts no one ever put obstacles in, and those in general, apparently, were satisfied with the areas allotted to them, containing an uncountable number of worlds of the most various classes and categories: planets and stars, galaxies and quasars.

What is the Big Universe

And only in the twentieth century, theoretical physicists for the first time raised the question of what is beyond the limits of our Small Universe, what is the big universe, into which the expanding boundaries of our Universe are continuously moving at the speed of light?

We have to make the longest journey. We follow the thought of the scientists who made this journey with the help of mathematical formulas. We will make it on the wings of a dream. Countless science fiction writers follow us along the same path, and those 12-15 billion light-years of the radius of our Universe, measured by scientists according to Einstein's formulas, will become cramped ...

So, go! We are rapidly picking up speed. Here, of course, today's cosmic ones are insufficient. Speeds and ten times more will barely be enough to study our solar system. The speed of light will not be enough for us, we cannot spend only ten billion years to overcome the space of our Universe!

Planets of the solar system

No, we have to cover this section of the path in ten seconds. And here we are at the edge of the universe. Giant fires of quasars blaze unbearably, which are always located almost at its extreme boundaries. Here they are left behind and seem to be winking after us: after all, the radiation of quasars pulsates, periodically changes.

We fly with the same fantastic speed and suddenly find ourselves surrounded by total darkness. No sparks of distant stars, no colored milk of mysterious nebulae. Maybe the Big Universe is an absolute void?

We turn on all possible devices. No, there are some hints of the presence of matter. Occasionally come across quanta of different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

It was possible to fix several meteor dust particles - matter. And further. A fairly dense cloud of gravitons, we clearly feel the action of many gravitational masses. But where are these very gravitating bodies?

Neither various telescopes nor various locators can show them to us. So, maybe these are all already “burnt out” pulsars and “black holes”, the final stages of the development of stars, when matter, collected in giant formations, cannot resist its own gravitational field and, having tightly swaddled itself, plunges into a long, almost sound sleep ?

Such a formation cannot be seen through a telescope - it does not emit anything. It cannot be detected by a locator either: it irrevocably absorbs any rays that fall on it. And only the gravitational field betrays its presence.

Well, the Big Universe is infinite not only in space, but also in time. 15 billion years of existence of the Small Universe compared to the eternity of the existence of the Big Universe is not even an instant, not a second compared to a millennium; we can calculate how many seconds are included in the millennium and we will get, although a large, but final figure.

And how many billion years are included in eternity? Endless quantity! Eternity is simply incommensurable with billions of years! So, during these innumerable times, any, the most economically burning star fires, managed to “burn out”, they managed to go through all the stages of stellar life, managed to go out and cool down almost to absolute zero.

By the way, the temperature of a body that has found itself in the space of the Big Universe does not differ by a thousandth of a degree from the absolute zero of the Kelvin scale. Meanwhile, a thermometer placed anywhere in the Small Universe will show several degrees of positive temperature: after all, the light of the most distant stars carries some energy. In our Small Universe it is not only light, but also warm!

Yes, it's not very comfortable in the Big Universe! We slow down the speed of our flight to the usual values in the Small Universe - tens and hundreds of kilometers per second.

Objects inhabiting the Big Universe

Let's look at some of objects inhabiting the Big Universe. Here a gigantic (judging by the magnitude of its gravitational field) mass of matter flies by. We peer into the superlocator screen.

It turns out that a powerful field gives rise to a tiny formation, its diameter is only about a dozen kilometers. Neutron star! We examine its surface, it is perfectly smooth, as if it had been carefully polished in a good workshop.

Suddenly, there was an instant flash on this surface: attracted by a powerful attraction, a meteorite crashed into our dead star, a piece of matter that is usual for us. No, he did not remain lying on the surface of the stellar corpse. It somehow spread very quickly over its surface in a puddle solid, and then soaked without residue into the ground ...

Jokes are bad with such mighty dwarfs! After all, their almighty gravitation will absorb the spaceship, and its crew, and instruments in the same way without a trace, and will turn everything into a neutron liquid, from which, after a while, hydrogen and helium of the new Small Universe will arise.

And of course, in this remelting, all the events that substances have had in our day will be forgotten, just as after the remelting of metal, it is impossible to restore the former contours of machine parts that have gone to scrap.

What space of the Big Universe

Yes, much is different here than in our Small Universe. Well, what space of the big universe? What are its properties?
We put experiments. The space is the same as ours three-dimensional. Like ours, it is curved in places by the gravitational field. Yes, being one of the forms of existence of matter, space is firmly connected with the matter that fills it.

This connection is especially pronounced here, where gigantic masses of matter are concentrated into tiny formations. We have already seen some of them - "black holes" and neutron stars. These formations, which are a natural result of the development of stars, have already been found in our Universe.

Black hole in the big universe

But there are also material formations here, much smaller in size - only meters, centimeters or even microns in diameter, but their mass is quite large, they also consist of super-condensed matter. Such bodies cannot arise by themselves, their own gravity is not enough to swaddle themselves tightly. But they can exist steadily if an extraneous force has squeezed them to such a state.

What is this power? Or, perhaps, these are fragments of larger blocks of superdense matter that collapsed for some reason? These are the plankeons of K.P. Stanyukovich.

In the Big Universe, matter is also found in its usual form. No they are not stars less stars. In our Small Universe, these formations could be small planets or satellites of planets.

Perhaps they were once them in some unknown to us Small Universe, but the stars around which they revolved went out and shrank, some accident tore them away from the central luminaries, and since their “small universes”, they wander through the infinity of the Big Universe “without a rudder and without sails”.

wandering planets

Perhaps among these wandering planets Are there any that were inhabited by intelligent beings? Of course, in the conditions of the Big Universe, life on them cannot exist for a long time. These completely frozen planets are deprived of energy sources.

Their reserves have long decayed to the last molecule radioactive substances, they completely lack the energy of wind, water, fossil fuels: after all, all these energy sources have as their primary source the rays of the central luminary, and they went out a long time ago.

But if the inhabitants of these worlds knew how to foresee the coming fate, they could seal letters in these planets of theirs to those who would visit them through unknown times and be able to read and understand. However, is the possibility of their long existence in the infinite space of this universe so hostile to the living being so probable?

The Big Universe is filled with matter approximately as “loosely” as ours, the Small one. At the same time, it must be remembered that the abundance of stars that we observe on a moonless night in the sky is not typical of the Small Universe. It's just that our Sun, and hence the Earth, are part of a stellar swarm - our Galaxy.

intergalactic space

More typically intergalactic space, from which only a few galaxies would be visible, light, slightly luminous clouds that fell on the black velvet of the sky. Stars and galaxies close to each other move relative to each other at speeds of tens and hundreds of kilometers per second.

Stars of intergalactic space

As you can see, these speeds are small. But they are such that they prevent the fall of some celestial bodies to others. When approaching, say, two stars, their trajectories will be somewhat curved, but the stars will each fly in their own way. The probability of a collision or approach of stars is almost zero, even in densely populated stellar cities like our galaxy.

Approximately the same is the probability of a collision of material bodies in the Big Universe. And letters sealed for ultra-distant descendants, given the ultra-low temperatures that even stopped thermal motion molecules can also exist indefinitely. Couldn't this be excellent material for a fantastic story called "A Letter from Eternity"?

So, in the Big Universe, we have not found a space that is different from our three-dimensional one. In all likelihood, the spaces of four and many dimensions are naked mathematical abstraction, which does not have real incarnations, unless, of course, time is considered the fourth dimension.

But it differs sharply from the first three dimensions (forward-backward, left-right, up-down) by its very nature.

Formation of the Small Universe

Well, how did our Small Universe? Some scientists believe that as a result of the collision of two supermassive formations of matter, which was in a certain "pre-stellar" form, all the matter that makes up our Universe was singled out in one fell swoop. It began to rapidly expand at the speed of light in all directions, forming a kind of luminous bubble in the infinite body of the Big Universe.

The Big Bang Theory of the Universe

Kirill Petrovich Stanyukovich - the author of the theory of the big bang of the universe

It's hard to say why this started big bang universe. Perhaps, during the collision of two plankeons, perhaps a random fluctuation in the density of a plankeon caused the first sparks of this explosion to appear.

It could be very modest in scale, but it threw out a gravitational wave, and when it reached the nearest plankeons, they also “reacted” - the release of matter bound by attraction began, accompanied by huge emissions and substances and quanta of electromagnetic radiation.

Small plankeons carried out this transformation immediately, while large ones, which subsequently formed the nuclei of Galaxies, spent billions of years on this process.

Even today, astronomers are still surprised at the never-ending generosity of the nuclei of some galaxies, throwing out frantic flows of gases, rays, and clusters of stars. This means that the process of transformation of the prestellar substance of matter into stellar matter... The sparks of the great gravitational fire fly farther and more and more plankeons flare up, set on fire by these sparks.

Quasars

Astronomers know of several relatively young fires that are likely to blossom into splendid galaxies in the future. These are the so-called quasars. All of them are very far from us, on the very "edge" of our Small Universe. This is the very beginning of the burning of the nuclei of future Galaxies.

Billions of years will pass, and the substance released from the flames of these fires will form into streams of stars and planets, which form beautiful spiral crowns around these cores. They will become remarkably similar to the currently existing spiral galaxies.

But, unfortunately, in those days our galaxies will already burn out and scatter into space with handfuls of cooled dead bodies, probably in many respects similar in nature to the prestellar matter that makes up their matter. For them, the cycle will be closed until a new “fire of matter” occurs.

And in the Galaxies formed by the burning of today's quasars, planets will appear suitable for development and life, and, perhaps, intelligence. And their wise men will look to theirs starry skies and wonder why they are so alone in the universe? Will the mind of people live in those ultra-distant times? Will he pass through the unthinkable abyss of time?

Or will all the creations of our culture be melted down in some plankeon without a trace, so that only one matter remains - eternal and indestructible? There is no answer to all these questions, and it is not known when science will answer them. But, once having arisen, intelligent life, if it passes the first risky stages of its development, will strengthen its positions.

What can threaten the culture of earthlings when it spreads to the group planetary systems nearby stars? space disaster? Explosion of the Sun, suddenly turned out to be a supernova? Will it cause no more damage to it than today's tsunami wave that washed away a couple of islands, the culture of mankind?

Yes, intelligent life, which has reached such a boundary, will be as indestructible as matter itself. And neither the gigantic abysses of time nor the immeasurable gaps of space will be afraid of her. And yet, our trip to the Big Universe should be considered unscientific fiction, an absurd fiction.

No, the point is not that the space of the Big Universe we represent will turn out to be different, that its “population” we represent will turn out to be different. No, in all these matters we firmly adhered to the known scientific facts, walked along the roads already traversed by the hypotheses of scientists. The point is different.

Impossible to travel to the Big Universe

The fact is that travel to the big universe may be for us, the people of the Earth impossible, unfeasible. Remember the basic properties of our universe. After all, it is "expanding". At the same time, its "expanding" faces move at the maximum possible speed in our Universe - at the speed of light in a vacuum.

But such speed is impossible for any material body. After all, as the speed increases, approaching the speed of light, the mass of this body will continuously increase. Very soon it will surpass all possible values - the masses of planets, stars, quasars, galaxies, our entire Universe.

Journey to the Big Universe

The mass of our accelerated body will become infinitely large. Well, to give acceleration to an infinitely large mass is possible only infinitely great strength. It is easy to understand that we have reached a dead end. Our interstellar ship, possessing infinite large mass, we can't budge. And humanity will never be able to catch up with the ray of light.

But we are not talking about the speed of light, but about incomparably high speeds that would make it possible to cross our entire Universe in a matter of minutes. This method of space travel was extracted from volumes not science fiction.

Such modesty is understandable: it is impossible to say anything concrete about the terms invented by science fiction writers. For any statement about speeds above the speeds of light today is unscientific, fantastic.

And with modern point of view, talking about super-high-speed movements is nonsense. Of course, it is unacceptable in non-fiction books. Unless in a specially noted case, when it is obvious that this is a simple invention, made for “official purposes”, in order to more clearly show the main thing.

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