Space Theories

Multiverse Theory

Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past ten years will have at least heard of the multiverse, or parallel universe, theory. Parallel worlds—as many of us already know—are said to be very much like ours, with only minor (or in some cases, major) differences. According to the theory, there is an infinite number of these universes.

The concept of the multiverse arises in a few areas of physics (and philosophy), but the most prominent example comes from something called inflation theory. Inflation theory describes a hypothetical event that occurred when our universe was very young — less than a second old. In an incredibly brief amount of time, the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion, "inflating" to become many orders of magnitude larger than its previous size.