> The advent of the Big Bang theory stemmed from Hubble work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann_equations

But Cosmology as a philosophy goes back to Aristotle and thinking about it led to ideas like Oblers Paradox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

This was a step towards it being a scientific question. It is a process from abstract musings to solid physics.

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In what sense are you referring to a multiverse? Because the many worlds interpretation is a valid phenomenological approach to wave function collapse, and there’s just as much evidence for that as for the Copenhagen interpretation. Consigning something like that to “science fiction” is a bit premature, don’t you think?

Even if you’re referring to other theories of a multiverse, like Roger Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, mathematics is a very valid approach to the world. It’s like you think mathematics doesn’t tell us things about the natural world. We largely developed our quantum field theories by investigating gauge symmetries, so why is developing a theory based on the math of conformal invariance such a stretch? I get that it’s difficult to verify, but “science fiction”? That’s jumping to conclusions for which there is no evidence.

Nope. The advent of the Big Bang theory stemmed from Hubble work. He saw a receding universe from our perspective, then it was postulated that the universe must have been small at some point logically. It wasn’t philosophical, it was data driven.

I’ve been thinking of this more recently and you bring up an interesting point I didn’t consider yet. A multiverse with ever possible outcome is already unimaginable, but if true then some of them must be able to contact others which compounds the complexity to infinity. It becomes a never ending loop of sorts.

Personally I don’t like the use of the multiverse in fiction. It’s an easy solution/plot device that too powerful to be enjoyable. If it exists than you have already won and lost every possible scenario, so the story becomes somewhat pointless.

Neil Armstrong's autobiography is a good read. Been a while so I forget how much detail he went in to but probably worth checking out.

That’s why I marked it as a side tangent that might be painting my willingness to accept the idea

Multiverse Theory is pure science fiction. There is absolutely no hard evidence that multiverses exist, any "science" based around it is built off of nothing but speculation and mathematics that have never been supported by real observations. It's theories based on theories based on more theories, it's not real science.

It's insane to me that scientists are spending their time trying to prove theories that were literally created by science fiction writers. Almost everything we know about the universe we learned through observation and decades of study, we didn't just randomly come up with a fantastical idea and then spend years trying to prove it's a real thing. Time travel, multiverses, simulation theory, higher dimensions; all of that was conceived from science fiction and now because "scientists" have spent decades creating "research" around it people actually think it's real science. None of it is based in reality, those theories formed in an echo chamber where they were carefully crafted into a convincing pseudoscience.

The root of the idea is in explaining why our universe's physics are so finely tuned to allow a universe that can end up producing something like us. The odds that our universe would be this make-up, rather than another, are enormous. So either we're super special or, taking the "as above so below" notion, every potential universe make-up exists and we are seeing this one because it's the only one where we can emerge. The notion of energy ("energy to maintain itself") might not even apply to other universes because their physics are unknowable. And whether energy exists between universes, now we're in the realm of "just making it up."

In terms of the theories that grow out of that and how everything is rationalized and explained, honestly it's untestable and pretty useless from a scientific view. If something is in another universe, by definition, we cannot access it. All we can do is infer the possibility but never get closer than "maybe." It's an interesting idea but what's the point? Whether it is true is inaccessible knowledge.

Its unfalsifiable at least for now. Perhaps we will eventually run into some phenomenon that makes more sense if one intrepretation of quantum mechanics is true compared to the others. For now most physcists follow the "shut up and calculate"-intrepretation.

I have absolutely no clue what your disney angle has to do with the many worlds intrepretation of quantum mechanics. This part of your message seems to make absolutely no sense.

Imagine the multi-verse like quantum foam. It’s a bubbley-fluctuation of expansion and contraction of each universe. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=scOCuRuMFy8

As opposed to a bunch of floating bubbles that knock around.

This fluctuation means the energy works out🤷‍♂️

That’s the way I picture it. As above so below.

Edit to add: if you imagine space time at the Planck scale, there are virtual bubbles that pop into and out of existence

In classical physics, momentum and energy are conserved, but heinsenburg spotted a loophole in the quantum realm. Energy and mass doesn’t have to be conserved, as long as it doesn’t have to exist for very long.

If you imagine the multiverse as these bubbles on a scale we couldn’t even imagine, our universe could exist in there. Just a fluctuation of energy that’s not supposed to exist for very long.

>but not only that, isn’t the idea completely unfalsifiable?

Yes. But while not a fan of the theory, that is a normal place for an abstract theory to start. Science often emerges from philosophical questions that becomes a framework for thinking about a problem and working at the edges. Think of the origin of the Universe. Today the Big Bang is pretty well understood but it started as being a very abstract set of philosophical musings that was only narrowed in on from multiple angles and with lots and lots of unfalsifiable speculation.

I’d have to agree with you. My main interest is these space craft that are SUPER primitive, these guys have 2 tiny windows and a bunch of gauges and switches to pilot all the way to the moon and back. It never ceases to amaze me.

Apollo 8 was the real defining mission, taking man to the Moon and back. Way too much focus is on Apollo 11 & 13.

b.t.w., I was 8 when Apollo 8 took place, and remember it well. Going out in the snow and looking up at the crescent Moon, and wishing I was there or at least could see them. Squinting my eyes, and saying I think I can see them. Yes, even at that age I knew that was a fantasy, but a nice one to have. Then we go inside (probably the other way around, don't remember for sure) and watch the Christmas Eve message from the Moon.

I third it.

I'm old enough to have followed the Apollo program live, including watching it live on TV. I used to have my bedroom walls covered with every article I could find about space. Many years later, I still found this podcast to be very compelling, even with a few details that I didn't know.

Dark Matter = God = Higher Power = All around us

This is what I told my kids when they were old enough to grasp the concept of God. We’re Matter and so is the Earth and this dark matter stuff holds us together so we don’t fly apart as a million billion molecules, hence Godlike power to keep watch over us.

But Dad?

No buts, if you want a better story or theory then go read the Bible or Quran or Dead Sea Scrolls or Hindu scripture or Bhuddist theology or the various paganistic deities from the world….which can be found in entertaining form by checking out Deities & Demigods by TSR (DnD).

My family in large hates it but my kids love the perspective.

Praise be to Dark Matter. The glue of life. 😎🚀🌙

The universe is information and discovering such new dark information about dark matter would cause an immediate implosion of the universe

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It would reinforce the notion of how little we truly know. It would, hopefully, push us to continue looking for answers to still unknown questions.

Finding any form of Dark Matter would be great. Currently we are forced to believe it’s there in order for our understanding of gravity to work. But since we have no idea what dark matter is, we can’t be certain that it even exists. Should it turn out not to exist, then we have a lot of work to do to make the rest of our theories hold up.

But finding direct evidence of dark matter, especially if it led to a good understanding of how it actually interacts with everything else besides gravitationally, would be a great affirmation of our models AND open up new avenues of discovery.

Apollo raw transcripts

I really enjoyed both seasons of this. Kevin Fong is a great host and the music is by Hans Zimmer. Totally recommend if anyone haven't listened to it yet.

Dont know if its quite what youre after, but How Apollo Flew to the Moon is an excellent book describing exactly how they did it in laymans terms.

Its called dark matter because they don't know what it is(in the dark about it). So finding a new form doesn't make sense since we don't know what it is to begin with.

What do you mean by discovering a new form of dark matter? Dark matter is just what we call the unexplained gravitational effect that can’t be accounted for by the matter we can detect through normal means. We don’t really know what it is so by definition it remains undiscovered