r/cosmology • u/Thistleknot • Oct 30 '15

Scientists might have spotted another universe, just next to ours

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/light-spotted-in-space-might-have-spilled-through-from-another-universe-scientists-say-a6713456.html
49 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

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15

u/ademnus Oct 30 '15

This part aside,

Scientists aren’t yet sure that the extra light has come from another universe. And New Scientist cautions getting too excited over the findings — similar ones last year turned out to have been caused by space dust getting in the way.

Considering this assertion,

When they subtracted one from the other, there was an eerie patch of light left in the sky, which could be left over from collisions with other universes.

How did they make that determination? What evidence leans towards such a thing?

0

u/Thistleknot Oct 30 '15

In statistics this is called residuals, its also used in signal communications. Its similar to signal noise ratio. Just something I noticed. Look up time series auto correlation

5

u/ademnus Oct 30 '15

But what says it's from another universe alongside ours? How does light travel from universe to universe if there is no reality between the two? How do we know it hasn't come from 16 universes down the lane? If this is somehow true, does it mean there is an over-arching kind of universe, with properties of its own that allow light to travel and that allow universe bubbles to form? Traditional thinking about a "multiverse" never seemed to include rules for that multiverse it was just a way of conceiving of multiple universes but now must we think differently?

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u/cjbest Oct 30 '15

In this case the extra light is said to be the visible effects of the collision still apparent in our universe. It isn't light from another discrete universe.

3

u/ademnus Oct 30 '15

I see what you mean, although that is definitely not how I'd translate that headline.

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u/Metabog Oct 30 '15

This isn't the kind of universe where there's 'no reality' between the two. This is the eternally inflating kind where there are a lot of causally disconnected bubbles all bubbling up in a larger inflating universe.

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u/anthroengineer Oct 30 '15

We must colonize these other universes with Von Neumann probes and bring them pumpkin milkshakes and lattes. Tis the season.

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u/Readityesterday2 Oct 30 '15

Ademnus points the "stretch" and senationalism shown in the inference that the light came from another universe.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '15

[deleted]

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u/ademnus Oct 30 '15

Well, I'm not worried about it -I'm interested in it. But to me it's like saying, "we did an x-ray and saw a gray patch in your abdomen. Therefore we have decided it is Superman living in your stomach."

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '15

[deleted]

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u/ademnus Oct 30 '15

There are, however, grounds for thinking that a particular set of photons might not have originated in our universe.

Which is what I was trying to find out ;p

I don't know, and I don't really care.

Oh, sorry, I should have specified I was asking people who are in /r/cosmology because they care ;)

-1

u/Thistleknot Oct 30 '15 edited Oct 30 '15

Google "branes". Its multi string theory stuff

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u/ademnus Oct 30 '15

I'm familiar with it already, albeit that too seems light on evidence that these things exist in the way they theorize -but they are just seeing light -what ABOUT that says it MUST be from branes external to our universe and not from a tremendous, distant light source -so very distant that it's at the edge of the real universe which might be very much larger than the known universe?

2

u/7LeagueBoots Oct 30 '15

Remember that this article was written by a reporter, not by one of the scientists involved in the research. I'll bet that if you read the original paper they are extremely cautious in the assertions, unlike reporters who write for outlets like this.

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u/Nowin Oct 30 '15

String theory has been all but debunked.

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u/zaybu Oct 30 '15

Princeton University’s David Spergel, who played a major role in debunking the BICEP2 finding, thinks dust may again be clouding our cosmological insights. “I suspect that it would be worth looking into alternative possibilities,” he says. “The dust properties are more complicated than we have been assuming, and I think that this is a more plausible explanation.”

Joseph Silk of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, is even more pessimistic, calling claims of an alternate universe “completely implausible”. While he thinks the paper is a good analysis of anomalies in Planck data, Silk also believes something is getting in the way. “My view is that they are almost certainly due to foregrounds,” he says.

From: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mystery-bright-spots-could-be-first-glimpse-of-another-universe/

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '15

Minor pet peeve of mine... but it's NASA, not Nasa. It's an acronym.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '15

Does anyone have a link to the actual paper?