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Asked by dannyrainbow to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by kapayaewh.
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Ian van der Linde answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Parallel universes help to explain some unanswered questions in physics. They refer to this as the “many worlds” hypothesis. However, they are usually talking about things at a very small scale (individual particles, like electrons) rather than on the large scale (what they would refer to as the “macro” level). So — it’s a tough one, and my hunch would be to say No, there aren’t fully-formed different versions of the world all running at the same time in the same place – I think the many worlds theory is a cheat to try to avoid some difficult questions in physics. But again, that’s just my opinion!
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Rhys Phillips answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Hmmm, certainly not in the Doctor Who sense. There might be parallel universes there in a different, more subtle sense but I’d need to see some evidence before I actually believed in it.
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David Corne answered on 14 Jun 2011:
I’ve read a few of the Popular Science books on this, which try to explain what the theoretical physicists really mean. The many-worlds hypothesis could be interpreted as fully-fledged other universes, and that could be how reality is. Imagine this universe was the 3 of clubs – the other universes would be the rest of the cards in the pack, all stacked up together but unable (easily) to reach each other. What do I actually believe? Usually a scientist would resort to Occam’s razor – meaning, the simplest explanation is the most likely explanation. But that’s not so clear in this case — parallel universes might actually be the simplest explanation for many of the observations we see in advanced physics experiments. I think they’re really out there. But, probably there are millions of other ‘me’s who would disagree.
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