1 00:00:03,690 --> 00:00:09,259 Imagine you could find an explanation for everything in the Universe, 2 00:00:09,894 --> 00:00:14,326 from the smallest events possible to the biggest. 3 00:00:15,175 --> 00:00:18,567 This is the dream which has captivated the most brilliant scientists 4 00:00:18,808 --> 00:00:20,933 since Einstein. 5 00:00:22,350 --> 00:00:24,500 Now they think they may have found it. 6 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:28,100 The theory is breathtaking 7 00:00:29,725 --> 00:00:32,425 and it has an extraordinary conclusion: 8 00:00:33,359 --> 00:00:38,713 that the Universe we live in is not the only one. 9 00:00:39,750 --> 00:00:42,650 There could be an infinite number of universes 10 00:00:42,650 --> 00:00:45,375 each with a different law of physics. 11 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:48,850 Our universe could be just one bubble 12 00:00:48,850 --> 00:00:52,350 floating in an ocean of other bubbles. 13 00:00:54,275 --> 00:00:57,600 Everything you're about to hear is true. 14 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:02,725 At least, in this universe it is. 15 00:01:11,868 --> 00:01:17,546 For almost a hundred years science has been haunted by a dark secret: 16 00:01:17,861 --> 00:01:23,969 that there might be mysterious hidden worlds beyond our human senses. 17 00:01:28,261 --> 00:01:31,874 Mystics had long claimed there were such places. 18 00:01:32,194 --> 00:01:36,825 They were, they said, full of ghosts and spirits. 19 00:01:37,002 --> 00:01:42,730 The last thing science wanted was to be associated with such superstition, 20 00:01:44,672 --> 00:01:46,857 but ever since the 1920s 21 00:01:47,261 --> 00:01:52,186 physicists have been trying to make sense of an uncomfortable discovery. 22 00:01:53,975 --> 00:01:59,250 When they tried to pinpoint the exact location of atomic particles like electrons 23 00:01:59,250 --> 00:02:01,600 they found it was utterly impossible. 24 00:02:03,442 --> 00:02:06,654 They had no single location. 25 00:02:06,830 --> 00:02:12,438 When one studies the properties of atoms one found that the reality is far stranger 26 00:02:12,648 --> 00:02:16,275 than anybody would have invented in the form of fiction. 27 00:02:18,166 --> 00:02:21,725 Particles really do have the possibility of, in some sense, 28 00:02:21,725 --> 00:02:23,750 being in more than one place at one time. 29 00:02:25,703 --> 00:02:29,195 The only explanation which anyone could come up with 30 00:02:29,747 --> 00:02:33,851 is that the particles don't just exist in our Universe. 31 00:02:36,582 --> 00:02:40,466 They flit into existence in other universes, too 32 00:02:41,276 --> 00:02:46,085 and there are an infinite number of these parallel universes, 33 00:02:46,877 --> 00:02:50,015 all of them slightly different. 34 00:02:52,050 --> 00:02:54,800 In effect, there's a parallel universe 35 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:57,300 in which Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo. 36 00:02:58,125 --> 00:03:02,575 In another the British Empire held on to its American colony. 37 00:03:04,501 --> 00:03:08,416 In one you were never born. 38 00:03:11,185 --> 00:03:15,603 Essentially anything that can happen does happen in one of the alternatives 39 00:03:15,895 --> 00:03:19,338 which means that superimposed on top of the Universe that we know of 40 00:03:19,525 --> 00:03:23,982 is an alternative universe where Al Gore is President and Elvis Presley is still alive. 41 00:03:25,915 --> 00:03:31,406 This idea was so uncomfortable that for decades scientists dismissed it, 42 00:03:33,443 --> 00:03:38,824 but in time parallel universes would make a spectacular comeback. 43 00:03:50,569 --> 00:03:56,305 On the ice rink I am communing with the fundamental laws of physics. 44 00:03:58,338 --> 00:04:02,625 At the instant of creation we believe that the Universe was symmetrical, 45 00:04:02,625 --> 00:04:05,150 it was pure, it was elegant. 46 00:04:08,700 --> 00:04:12,550 Without friction Newtonian laws are laid bare, 47 00:04:12,550 --> 00:04:15,425 simple, elegant and beautiful, 48 00:04:16,275 --> 00:04:22,000 pure, noble, elemental, just like it was at the beginning of time. 49 00:04:24,961 --> 00:04:29,210 When I was a child of eight my elementary school teacher came in the room 50 00:04:29,210 --> 00:04:32,525 and announced that a great scientist had just died 51 00:04:32,622 --> 00:04:37,300 and on the evening news that night, everyone was flashing pictures of his desk 52 00:04:37,300 --> 00:04:40,650 with the unfinished manuscript of his greatest work. 53 00:04:49,540 --> 00:04:53,075 I wanted to know what was in that manuscript. 54 00:04:56,032 --> 00:05:00,425 Years later I found out that it was the attempt of Albert Einstein 55 00:05:00,425 --> 00:05:04,325 to create a Theory of Everything, a theory of the Universe 56 00:05:04,325 --> 00:05:07,575 and I wanted to be part of that quest. 57 00:05:15,091 --> 00:05:19,319 Einstein never achieved his goal of a Theory of Everything, 58 00:05:19,648 --> 00:05:24,613 but again and again others have thought they were on the brink of this ultimate achievement. 59 00:05:25,389 --> 00:05:28,636 This was always wishful thinking 60 00:05:29,324 --> 00:05:31,550 until recently. 61 00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:38,388 A revolution occurred in the 1980s. 62 00:05:39,059 --> 00:05:44,364 In universities across the world new ideas in science streamed forth. 63 00:05:46,069 --> 00:05:51,200 Finally, it seemed, everything in the Universe was about to be explained. 64 00:05:52,463 --> 00:05:55,804 In Britain the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, 65 00:05:56,104 --> 00:06:01,803 was even so confident he claimed physics was ready to read the mind of God. 66 00:06:02,300 --> 00:06:05,950 There would soon be no big scientific problems left. 67 00:06:13,016 --> 00:06:16,453 One idea was the most revolutionary of all. 68 00:06:16,864 --> 00:06:19,847 It seemed a sure fire Theory of Everything 69 00:06:20,097 --> 00:06:23,845 and captured the imagination of scientists like Burt Ovrut. 70 00:06:27,549 --> 00:06:30,725 It was all to do with string. 71 00:06:41,173 --> 00:06:47,325 It has been thought since Physics began that matter was made up of particles. 72 00:06:47,475 --> 00:06:53,174 We had changed that point of view now. We now think that matter is made up of little strings. 73 00:06:53,863 --> 00:06:56,313 For years it had been an article of faith 74 00:06:56,613 --> 00:07:01,038 that all the matter in the Universe was made of tiny, invisible particles. 75 00:07:01,925 --> 00:07:07,569 Now suddenly the particle physicists discovered they'd been studying the wrong thing. 76 00:07:08,032 --> 00:07:12,548 The particles were really tiny, invisible strings. 77 00:07:14,850 --> 00:07:17,500 The theory was called String Theory 78 00:07:17,675 --> 00:07:23,525 and it maintained that matter emanated from these tiny strings like music. 79 00:07:24,315 --> 00:07:27,737 You can think of it as a violin string or a guitar string. 80 00:07:28,076 --> 00:07:31,354 If you pluck it in a certain way you get a certain frequency, 81 00:07:31,671 --> 00:07:36,575 but if you pluck it a different way you can get more frequencies on this string 82 00:07:36,575 --> 00:07:38,750 and in fact you have different notes. 83 00:07:39,150 --> 00:07:43,029 Nature is made of all the little notes, the musical notes, 84 00:07:43,259 --> 00:07:46,087 that are played on these super-strings. 85 00:07:47,277 --> 00:07:51,836 All of a sudden we realised the Universe is a symphony 86 00:07:51,950 --> 00:07:55,933 and the laws of physics are harmonies of a super-string. 87 00:08:04,950 --> 00:08:09,600 But if String Theory was to become Einstein's missing Theory of Everything 88 00:08:09,882 --> 00:08:12,846 it would have to pass one test. 89 00:08:15,125 --> 00:08:18,050 It would have to explain a rather special event: 90 00:08:20,086 --> 00:08:23,389 the birth of the Universe. 91 00:08:40,100 --> 00:08:45,300 The origins of the Universe had always been the special subject of the cosmologists 92 00:08:45,425 --> 00:08:48,645 who studied the big world of stars and galaxies. 93 00:08:51,574 --> 00:08:55,418 They, too, felt they were on the verge of a great triumph, 94 00:08:56,200 --> 00:09:00,475 a complete understanding of how the world had begun. 95 00:09:04,425 --> 00:09:09,536 They'd long known things had started with a giant explosion - the Big Bang. 96 00:09:11,825 --> 00:09:16,050 But by now cosmologists had refined the idea. 97 00:09:19,826 --> 00:09:22,823 They had worked backwards in time from the present day, 98 00:09:23,350 --> 00:09:26,986 closer and closer to the instant of the Big Bang. 99 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:30,201 Their work was incredibly precise. 100 00:09:30,925 --> 00:09:33,950 We have confidence in extrapolating back from the present 101 00:09:33,980 --> 00:09:39,300 to when the first stars and galaxies formed and the Universe was only a billion years old, 102 00:09:42,095 --> 00:09:46,050 or extrapolating back farther to when the first atoms were formed, 103 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:49,589 when the Universe was a few hundred thousand years old, 104 00:09:49,775 --> 00:09:53,000 or when the first nuclei formed when the Universe was only a few seconds old. 105 00:09:53,108 --> 00:09:58,650 Physics was now actually ready to talk about these bizarre sounding events in the Universe, 106 00:09:58,900 --> 00:10:03,425 fractions of a second and even billionths and billionths and billionths of a second, 107 00:10:03,425 --> 00:10:09,386 10-35 seconds after the instant of the Big Bang. Absolutely fantastic. 108 00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:13,024 If everything in the Universe was to be explained 109 00:10:13,245 --> 00:10:17,355 then String Theory and the Big Bang would now seamlessly merge 110 00:10:17,625 --> 00:10:20,100 and they'd complement each other perfectly. 111 00:10:23,550 --> 00:10:27,350 After all, one concerned the birth of the Universe 112 00:10:33,511 --> 00:10:36,742 and the other all the matter in it. 113 00:10:41,282 --> 00:10:44,036 It was surely a foregone conclusion. 114 00:10:44,414 --> 00:10:47,727 Physics seemed to be on the edge of glory, 115 00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:56,500 but it all went terribly wrong. 116 00:10:57,900 --> 00:11:01,375 Try as they might they just couldn't get the two ideas to merge 117 00:11:01,829 --> 00:11:06,250 and then, after 10 years of struggling, something even worse happened: 118 00:11:07,075 --> 00:11:11,400 their two pet theories now began to self-destruct. 119 00:11:18,450 --> 00:11:21,622 The first problem appeared with the Big Bang. 120 00:11:21,811 --> 00:11:26,097 The cosmologists had assumed that as they worked backwards in time 121 00:11:26,315 --> 00:11:31,350 they would eventually work their way back all the way to the beginning of the Big Bang. 122 00:11:31,500 --> 00:11:34,075 There would be no awkward gaps, 123 00:11:34,850 --> 00:11:40,894 but after years of end-less refinement there was one gap which refused to disappear, 124 00:11:41,450 --> 00:11:43,975 the most important one of all. 125 00:11:46,499 --> 00:11:52,575 The fundamental problem of cosmology is that the laws of physics as we know them 126 00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:55,325 break down at the instant of the Big Bang. 127 00:11:55,575 --> 00:11:58,075 Well some people say what's wrong with that, 128 00:11:58,125 --> 00:12:00,550 what's wrong with having the laws of physics collapse? 129 00:12:00,842 --> 00:12:03,579 Well for a physicist this is a disaster. 130 00:12:03,879 --> 00:12:09,903 All our lives we've dedicated to the proposition that the Universe obeys knowable laws, 131 00:12:10,143 --> 00:12:13,137 laws that can be written down in the language of mathematics 132 00:12:13,329 --> 00:12:16,541 and here we have the centrepiece of the Universe itself, 133 00:12:16,625 --> 00:12:19,775 a missing piece beyond physical law. 134 00:12:20,950 --> 00:12:23,025 The very beginning of the Big Bang 135 00:12:23,368 --> 00:12:26,900 was the single biggest mystery in all of cosmology. 136 00:12:27,925 --> 00:12:31,475 It was called the singularity. 137 00:12:36,050 --> 00:12:40,850 When you extrapolate Einstein's general Theory of Relativity back to the beginning 138 00:12:41,175 --> 00:12:45,075 you discover what we call a singularity, a cosmic singularity, 139 00:12:45,500 --> 00:12:49,050 which is to say that the equations blow up. 140 00:12:56,175 --> 00:12:59,775 But the problem with the Big Bang was soon overshadowed. 141 00:13:02,825 --> 00:13:06,175 The strings were in trouble, too. 142 00:13:17,550 --> 00:13:19,825 The hope had been that String Theory 143 00:13:19,890 --> 00:13:23,748 would evolve into the single definitive explanation for the Universe, 144 00:13:27,750 --> 00:13:31,453 but as more and more people worked on it something puzzling happened. 145 00:13:33,475 --> 00:13:38,412 The physicists found a second version of it and then a third. 146 00:13:38,625 --> 00:13:41,965 Soon they had found five different String Theories. 147 00:13:42,292 --> 00:13:45,750 That wasn't single and it didn't sound very definitive. 148 00:13:46,075 --> 00:13:49,942 Five, even though it's not a very large number, is too large 149 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:54,527 for us because we would like to have a more unique theory than that 150 00:13:54,801 --> 00:13:57,990 and this definitely was a problem, was a great crisis, 151 00:13:58,300 --> 00:14:01,875 so a lot of time was spent studying those individual five theories, 152 00:14:01,900 --> 00:14:05,875 but in the back of our minds always was why are there five of these things, 153 00:14:06,100 --> 00:14:08,400 shouldn't there only be one? 154 00:14:10,450 --> 00:14:13,500 String Theory had begun to unravel. 155 00:14:14,125 --> 00:14:19,175 It seemed as if the dream of a Theory of Everything was as far away as ever. 156 00:14:20,275 --> 00:14:25,550 Cynics began to come out and say that String Theory is too hard, it's a dead end, 157 00:14:25,625 --> 00:14:29,400 it's simply not the way to go and it's not the Theory of Everything, 158 00:14:29,415 --> 00:14:31,332 it's the theory of nothing. 159 00:14:40,875 --> 00:14:43,714 But just as the scientists were about to give up hope, 160 00:14:44,450 --> 00:14:47,685 a new and startling discovery would be made. 161 00:14:49,250 --> 00:14:52,976 This would inspire them to begin their quest again 162 00:14:53,488 --> 00:15:00,150 and force them at last to confront their least popular idea: parallel universes. 163 00:15:07,275 --> 00:15:11,900 When String Theory fell apart, not everyone was distraught. 164 00:15:13,650 --> 00:15:16,950 Some people even seemed to relish the fact. 165 00:15:17,516 --> 00:15:21,525 If String Theory really was this so-called Theory of Everything 166 00:15:21,825 --> 00:15:25,775 five theories of everything seems like an embarrassment of riches. 167 00:15:27,875 --> 00:15:32,729 Michael Duff had been the rising star of an earlier idea called super gravity. 168 00:15:33,250 --> 00:15:37,800 String Theory had displaced it and almost destroyed Duff's career. 169 00:15:39,550 --> 00:15:42,630 Physics tend to be dictated by fad and fashion. 170 00:15:43,150 --> 00:15:48,400 There are the gurus who dictate the direction in which new ideas grow. 171 00:15:51,275 --> 00:15:54,163 It was a very lonely time in many ways. 172 00:15:54,775 --> 00:15:59,500 When I tried to get graduate students interested many of them would say: 173 00:15:59,500 --> 00:16:01,800 well, look, you may be right and you may be wrong, 174 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:05,500 but if I work in super gravity I'm not going to find a job. 175 00:16:06,225 --> 00:16:09,675 What made the experience of the super gravity guys so galling 176 00:16:10,283 --> 00:16:12,550 was that their theory wasn't so very different 177 00:16:12,550 --> 00:16:14,300 from String Theory to begin with. 178 00:16:15,025 --> 00:16:17,575 In fact, the main disagreement between them 179 00:16:17,949 --> 00:16:22,639 was a point of detail which, to outsiders, could seem like nitpicking. 180 00:16:22,903 --> 00:16:27,352 It was about the number of dimensions in the Universe. 181 00:16:34,050 --> 00:16:38,075 We normally think of ourselves as living in a three-dimensional world. 182 00:16:40,950 --> 00:16:43,000 We can move in three ways: 183 00:16:43,025 --> 00:16:47,175 left or right, up or down, and forwards and backwards, 184 00:16:52,900 --> 00:16:56,115 but physics liked adding extra dimensions. 185 00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:00,225 Einstein suggested time should be a fourth dimension. 186 00:17:03,325 --> 00:17:08,149 Then someone suggested a fifth spatial dimension and then a sixth. 187 00:17:08,222 --> 00:17:10,822 The numbers just kept growing. 188 00:17:11,425 --> 00:17:16,500 The extra dimensions were spaces in the Universe which we could never perceive. 189 00:17:16,557 --> 00:17:19,089 Most were microscopically small 190 00:17:19,419 --> 00:17:22,500 but scientists believed they were really there. 191 00:17:23,350 --> 00:17:29,400 String Theory had been convinced there were in total exactly 10 dimensions. 192 00:17:30,225 --> 00:17:34,650 Now if you have a little oscillating string it has to have enough room to oscillate properly 193 00:17:35,125 --> 00:17:38,850 and when one works this out mathematically you find it, 194 00:17:38,850 --> 00:17:43,350 it just got a very clear answer. It had to be in 10 dimensional space. 195 00:17:43,625 --> 00:17:44,800 Ten dimensions. 196 00:17:44,781 --> 00:17:47,544 Nine spatial dimensions and one time. 197 00:17:47,975 --> 00:17:53,000 Super gravity though had been convinced there were exactly eleven dimensions. 198 00:17:53,238 --> 00:17:57,813 The equations of super gravity took their simplest and most elegant form 199 00:17:58,124 --> 00:18:01,327 when written in this 11 dimensional framework. 200 00:18:02,900 --> 00:18:06,850 There was a war between the tenth dimension and the eleventh dimension. 201 00:18:06,942 --> 00:18:11,175 In the 10-dimensional bandwagon we had string theorists, hundreds of them, 202 00:18:11,206 --> 00:18:14,950 working to tease out all the properties of the known universe 203 00:18:14,950 --> 00:18:17,700 from one framework: a vibrating string 204 00:18:19,625 --> 00:18:24,950 and then we had this small band of outcasts, outlaws, working in the eleventh dimension. 205 00:18:27,281 --> 00:18:29,139 In a final desperate move 206 00:18:29,462 --> 00:18:33,952 the string theorists tried adding one last thing to their cherished idea. 207 00:18:34,436 --> 00:18:38,049 They added the very thing they had spent a decade rubbishing: 208 00:18:39,170 --> 00:18:41,650 the eleventh dimension. 209 00:18:44,275 --> 00:18:49,587 Now something almost magical happened to the five competing String Theories. 210 00:18:49,944 --> 00:18:54,252 The answer turned out to be - and it really was absolutely remarkable, 211 00:18:54,252 --> 00:18:57,675 I mean it really is remarkable - it turns out that they were all the same. 212 00:19:00,325 --> 00:19:04,975 These five String Theories turned out to be simply different manifestations 213 00:19:04,975 --> 00:19:07,125 of a more fundamental theory, 214 00:19:10,525 --> 00:19:15,250 precisely this theory which we had discarded back in the early 1980s. 215 00:19:17,593 --> 00:19:21,550 In 11 dimensions looking from the mountain-top, looking down 216 00:19:21,700 --> 00:19:26,475 you could see String Theory as being part of a much larger reality, 217 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:29,225 reality of the eleventh dimension. 218 00:19:32,175 --> 00:19:33,575 Well it was a wonderful feeling 219 00:19:33,575 --> 00:19:36,725 to think that all those years spent in the eleventh dimension 220 00:19:37,075 --> 00:19:38,725 were not completely wasted. 221 00:19:47,025 --> 00:19:50,950 The two camps had been absolutely certain the other was wrong. 222 00:19:51,655 --> 00:19:57,150 Now, suddenly, they realised their ideas complemented each other perfectly. 223 00:19:57,477 --> 00:20:00,280 With the addition of one extra dimension 224 00:20:00,539 --> 00:20:03,550 String Theory made sense again, 225 00:20:07,150 --> 00:20:11,325 but it had become a very different kind of theory. 226 00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:15,550 What happened to the string? 227 00:20:30,150 --> 00:20:33,025 The tiny invisible strings of String Theory 228 00:20:33,150 --> 00:20:37,629 were supposed to be the fundamental building blocks of all the matter in the Universe, 229 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,850 but now, with the addition of the eleventh dimension, 230 00:20:42,425 --> 00:20:44,050 they changed. 231 00:20:45,675 --> 00:20:48,554 They stretched and they combined. 232 00:20:48,900 --> 00:20:53,500 The astonishing conclusion was that all the matter in the Universe 233 00:20:53,525 --> 00:20:58,966 was connected to one vast structure: a membrane. 234 00:20:59,329 --> 00:21:03,825 In effect our entire Universe is a membrane. 235 00:21:11,825 --> 00:21:16,058 The quest to explain everything in the Universe could begin again 236 00:21:16,358 --> 00:21:19,601 and at its heart would be this new theory. 237 00:21:19,964 --> 00:21:24,042 It was dubbed Membrane Theory, or M Theory, 238 00:21:24,402 --> 00:21:28,490 but so enigmatic and profound did the idea seem 239 00:21:28,828 --> 00:21:32,624 that some thought M should stand for other things. 240 00:21:32,740 --> 00:21:33,700 M Theory. 241 00:21:33,682 --> 00:21:36,850 Where M stands for magic, mystery or membrane. 242 00:21:37,150 --> 00:21:38,100 M Theory. 243 00:21:38,111 --> 00:21:41,200 Physicists get kind of dreamy-eyed when they talk about M Theory. 244 00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:41,950 M Theory. 245 00:21:41,950 --> 00:21:45,425 Maybe M stands for mother, the mother of all strings. 246 00:21:45,525 --> 00:21:49,125 Maybe it's magic. Maybe it's the majesty, 247 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:52,475 the majesty of a comprehensive theory of the Universe. 248 00:21:52,475 --> 00:21:53,625 M Theory. 249 00:21:54,050 --> 00:21:56,800 Magical mystery, madness. 250 00:21:56,950 --> 00:21:58,025 M Theory. 251 00:22:02,325 --> 00:22:05,050 With M Theory it seemed at last 252 00:22:05,193 --> 00:22:08,858 there was a theory which might explain everything in the Universe, 253 00:22:11,975 --> 00:22:14,534 but before they could decide if this was true 254 00:22:15,100 --> 00:22:21,375 the scientists needed to know more about this new eleventh dimension. 255 00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:27,550 It quickly became clear it was a place 256 00:22:27,550 --> 00:22:31,200 where all the normal rules of common-sense have been abandoned 257 00:22:32,700 --> 00:22:39,075 For one thing it is both infinitely long, but only a very small distance across. 258 00:22:40,025 --> 00:22:43,550 That eleventh dimension will, at its maximum size, 259 00:22:43,550 --> 00:22:46,350 could be something like a trillionth of a millimetre. 260 00:22:46,675 --> 00:22:50,430 Well this is 10 to the -20 of a millimetre. 261 00:22:50,589 --> 00:22:55,450 That's taking a millimetre and dividing it by 10 with 20 zeros after it, 262 00:22:55,450 --> 00:22:57,450 so that's very, very small. 263 00:23:00,675 --> 00:23:05,675 That means that it exists only one trillionth of a millimetre 264 00:23:05,900 --> 00:23:09,570 from every point in our three-dimensional world. 265 00:23:09,981 --> 00:23:12,950 It's closer than your clothes to your body 266 00:23:13,525 --> 00:23:15,400 and yet we can't sense it. 267 00:23:18,595 --> 00:23:22,850 In this mysterious space our membrane Universe is floating. 268 00:23:24,418 --> 00:23:27,725 At first no one could imagine how that worked. 269 00:23:29,364 --> 00:23:34,125 Then some suggested it might float like a thin rubber sheet. 270 00:23:34,580 --> 00:23:38,375 Others that it might be more like a bubble which vibrated 271 00:23:38,500 --> 00:23:41,725 as it was blown aimlessly across hyperspace. 272 00:23:46,950 --> 00:23:50,413 If all this wasn't surreal enough, it was then proposed 273 00:23:50,525 --> 00:23:53,250 that there might be another membrane universe 274 00:23:53,168 --> 00:23:57,375 pulsating at the opposite end of the eleventh dimension. 275 00:23:58,976 --> 00:24:02,100 At first this idea wasn't taken very seriously, 276 00:24:02,325 --> 00:24:05,125 but eventually it would be re-examined 277 00:24:05,696 --> 00:24:11,850 for physics was about to ask whether our Universe was really alone. 278 00:24:23,381 --> 00:24:25,700 It began with Lisa Randall. 279 00:24:27,926 --> 00:24:31,289 People look at rock climbing saying it's of course very physical, 280 00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:36,200 but you also find that you can concentrate on one little thing. 281 00:24:37,575 --> 00:24:42,300 I like solving problems, I like games, I like figuring things out. 282 00:24:46,550 --> 00:24:51,575 Randall had been fascinated by an apparently inexplicable phenomenon: 283 00:24:52,625 --> 00:24:55,575 the weakness of gravity. 284 00:24:56,290 --> 00:24:58,675 There are various forces we see in nature. 285 00:24:59,850 --> 00:25:03,850 Most of them we understand at some level 286 00:25:04,575 --> 00:25:06,250 and then there's gravity 287 00:25:12,773 --> 00:25:14,600 which seems very different. 288 00:25:17,725 --> 00:25:22,393 The gravitational force is extremely weak in comparison with the other forces. 289 00:25:22,737 --> 00:25:25,751 Now you might look around and say gravity doesn't seem weak, 290 00:25:25,950 --> 00:25:29,065 but if you think about it you have the entire Earth pulling on you 291 00:25:29,175 --> 00:25:31,600 and yet you can manage to pick things up. 292 00:25:34,575 --> 00:25:37,025 Gravity certainly does not look weak in everyday life. 293 00:25:37,025 --> 00:25:39,225 It's responsible for keeping our feet on the ground 294 00:25:39,350 --> 00:25:43,500 and keeping Earth spinning around the Sun and so on, 295 00:25:44,025 --> 00:25:48,150 but actually gravity is incredibly weak compared to the, to the other forces. 296 00:25:50,618 --> 00:25:55,311 This is easy to appreciate if you take an ordinary refrigerator magnet 297 00:25:55,531 --> 00:25:58,389 and stick it on top of a metal pin. 298 00:25:58,534 --> 00:26:02,885 We all know this fridge magnet will actually pick that pin up off the table, 299 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,425 so that sort of dramatically illustrates how feeble gravity is 300 00:26:09,425 --> 00:26:13,125 compared even to the magnetic force of a tiny fridge magnet. 301 00:26:13,275 --> 00:26:17,160 It turns out that there are very new ideas on how to explain the weakness of gravity 302 00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:18,975 if we have extra dimensions. 303 00:26:20,550 --> 00:26:22,492 When M Theory emerged, 304 00:26:22,721 --> 00:26:26,425 Randall and her colleagues wondered if it might provide the explanation. 305 00:26:27,550 --> 00:26:31,175 Could gravity be leaking from our Universe 306 00:26:31,550 --> 00:26:35,500 into the empty space of the eleventh dimension? 307 00:26:35,925 --> 00:26:37,770 Gravity might only appear to be weak 308 00:26:37,770 --> 00:26:40,325 even though it's fundamentally just as strong as everything else 309 00:26:40,325 --> 00:26:45,400 because it dilutes its strength out in all these extra dimensions that we can't see. 310 00:26:48,900 --> 00:26:50,625 Randall tried to calculate 311 00:26:50,625 --> 00:26:52,250 how gravity could leak 312 00:26:52,250 --> 00:26:54,075 from our membrane Universe 313 00:26:54,273 --> 00:26:55,775 into empty space, 314 00:26:56,350 --> 00:26:58,300 but she couldn't make it work. 315 00:27:00,655 --> 00:27:02,343 Then she heard the theory 316 00:27:02,583 --> 00:27:06,550 that there might be another membrane in the eleventh dimension. 317 00:27:07,775 --> 00:27:10,775 Now she had a really strange thought. 318 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:16,250 What if gravity wasn't leaking from our Universe but to it? 319 00:27:16,825 --> 00:27:19,450 What if it came from that other universe? 320 00:27:20,361 --> 00:27:25,919 On that membrane, or brane, gravity would be as strong as the other forces, 321 00:27:27,260 --> 00:27:31,400 but by the time it reached us it would only be a faint signal. 322 00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:41,024 Now when she reworked her calculations everything fitted exactly. 323 00:27:42,773 --> 00:27:46,047 If you were to imagine that there are two membranes. 324 00:27:46,325 --> 00:27:48,350 Say there's one in which we sit 325 00:27:48,775 --> 00:27:49,900 and one in which 326 00:27:50,350 --> 00:27:51,925 if there's other stuff it sits there, 327 00:27:52,001 --> 00:27:54,475 but not our particles, not the stuff that we're made of 328 00:27:54,588 --> 00:27:57,467 and not the stuff that we see forces associated with. 329 00:27:58,100 --> 00:28:00,650 If we lived anywhere else in the extra dimension, 330 00:28:00,725 --> 00:28:02,275 we would see gravity as very weak 331 00:28:02,370 --> 00:28:05,675 because it's mostly spending its time near the other brane. 332 00:28:06,475 --> 00:28:09,075 We only see the tail end of gravity. 333 00:28:11,079 --> 00:28:14,463 The weakness of gravity could at last be explained, 334 00:28:15,699 --> 00:28:21,362 but only by introducing the idea of a parallel universe. 335 00:28:24,250 --> 00:28:27,575 Randall's idea opened a Pandora's Box. 336 00:28:28,128 --> 00:28:31,076 Now suddenly physicists all over the world 337 00:28:31,300 --> 00:28:36,298 piled into the eleventh dimension trying to solve age-old problems 338 00:28:36,598 --> 00:28:40,084 and every time it seemed the perfect explanation 339 00:28:40,314 --> 00:28:43,000 was another parallel universe. 340 00:28:44,384 --> 00:28:46,025 Everywhere they looked, 341 00:28:46,175 --> 00:28:48,950 it seemed they began to find more and more of them. 342 00:28:49,683 --> 00:28:52,165 From every corner of the eleventh dimension 343 00:28:52,525 --> 00:28:56,548 parallel universes came crawling out of the woodwork. 344 00:29:15,075 --> 00:29:18,225 Some took the form of three-dimensional membranes, 345 00:29:18,225 --> 00:29:20,225 like our own universe. 346 00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,775 Others, were merely sheets of energy. 347 00:29:25,250 --> 00:29:28,775 Then there were cylindrical and even looped membranes. 348 00:29:30,850 --> 00:29:32,300 But in no time at all, 349 00:29:32,450 --> 00:29:37,175 the eleventh dimension seemed to be jam-packed full of membranes. 350 00:29:37,725 --> 00:29:39,925 We began to ask ourselves the question: 351 00:29:39,925 --> 00:29:42,175 who lives in the eleventh dimension? 352 00:29:43,750 --> 00:29:47,450 We have intersecting membranes, we have membranes with holes in them, 353 00:29:47,575 --> 00:29:49,375 we have membranes that look like doughnuts 354 00:29:49,375 --> 00:29:51,775 or have many different kinds of doughnut holes. 355 00:29:52,025 --> 00:29:54,975 We're just littered with different kinds of membranes. 356 00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,875 This eleventh dimension not only had 357 00:29:59,950 --> 00:30:04,425 the membrane, which was the bubble-like or sheet-like object, 358 00:30:04,425 --> 00:30:09,050 but it had a whole wealth of different branes of varying dimensions, 359 00:30:09,550 --> 00:30:11,275 unfortunately called pea branes. 360 00:30:13,425 --> 00:30:17,275 Each of these membranes was a possible other universe. 361 00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,675 M Theory had unwittingly made the idea 362 00:30:22,675 --> 00:30:26,200 of parallel universes respectable again. 363 00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,250 In another universe the proton may be unstable, 364 00:30:31,350 --> 00:30:33,600 in which case atoms would dissolve, 365 00:30:33,700 --> 00:30:35,250 and DNA cannot form 366 00:30:35,375 --> 00:30:37,925 and therefore there's no intelligent life in these universes. 367 00:30:38,325 --> 00:30:40,950 Perhaps it's a universe of electrons and electricity 368 00:30:40,950 --> 00:30:44,025 perhaps a universe of lightening bolts and neutrinos, but 369 00:30:44,025 --> 00:30:45,875 no stable matter. 370 00:30:46,650 --> 00:30:50,573 The other universes are parallel to ours and may be quite close to ours, 371 00:30:50,573 --> 00:30:52,573 but of which we'd never be aware. 372 00:30:54,971 --> 00:30:56,325 They may be completely different 373 00:30:56,042 --> 00:30:59,150 with completely different laws of nature operating. 374 00:30:59,248 --> 00:31:02,622 It may not all have life, but some fraction of them will have life 375 00:31:02,700 --> 00:31:06,078 and whatever that fraction is if there's an infinite number of these universes 376 00:31:06,275 --> 00:31:10,749 there'll be an infinite number of universes that have living civilisations. 377 00:31:15,525 --> 00:31:18,375 Some of these universes may look just like ours, 378 00:31:18,525 --> 00:31:20,900 except perhaps you're not there. 379 00:31:25,658 --> 00:31:29,005 M Theory was getting stranger and stranger, 380 00:31:30,032 --> 00:31:34,699 but could it really be a theory which explained everything in our Universe? 381 00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:37,975 To have any chance of that 382 00:31:37,975 --> 00:31:42,875 it would have to do something no other rival theory had ever been able to do. 383 00:31:45,575 --> 00:31:49,050 It would have to make sense of the baffling singularity 384 00:31:49,050 --> 00:31:51,000 at the beginning of the Big Bang. 385 00:31:52,575 --> 00:31:56,925 M Theory was about to come up with a suitably outrageous answer 386 00:31:58,250 --> 00:32:02,175 and parallel universes would be at the very heart of it. 387 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,875 I was a teenager, I don't remember quite when it was 388 00:32:16,875 --> 00:32:19,425 and I don't remember precisely why 389 00:32:19,425 --> 00:32:22,625 my father and I were down in Manhattan at the harbour. 390 00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,181 One of the great ocean liners at the time was the Michelangelo 391 00:32:33,275 --> 00:32:36,325 and it was in harbour I remember on the west side of Manhattan, 392 00:32:36,325 --> 00:32:37,950 must have been near 42nd Street. 393 00:32:38,725 --> 00:32:40,375 It was a remarkable sight 394 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,125 It's an enormous ship, 395 00:32:42,575 --> 00:32:45,300 let's say 150 or 200ft high, 396 00:32:45,300 --> 00:32:48,525 and the entire superstructure in the front of the ship, 397 00:32:48,525 --> 00:32:51,350 the entire bow had been just crushed 398 00:32:51,450 --> 00:32:54,675 by a wave which had blown out all of the windows 399 00:32:54,675 --> 00:32:57,100 in the forward bulkhead right up to the bridge. 400 00:33:00,950 --> 00:33:04,050 This is one of what they call a white wave, or a rogue wave 401 00:33:04,050 --> 00:33:07,375 which had hit the Michelangelo and done all this damage. 402 00:33:18,500 --> 00:33:21,225 What's interesting is that there are waves 403 00:33:21,225 --> 00:33:25,025 somewhat similar to this which inhabit the higher dimensions 404 00:33:26,275 --> 00:33:29,200 and then you can imagine if you had this huge 405 00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,600 rogue wave moving through the higher dimension, 406 00:33:32,750 --> 00:33:35,300 if it slams into another wave 407 00:33:35,300 --> 00:33:38,250 you're going to have a tremendous cataclysmic collision. 408 00:33:47,125 --> 00:33:49,800 Waves had long fascinated Burt Ovrut. 409 00:33:50,150 --> 00:33:54,725 Now they were just about to turn M Theory upside down. 410 00:33:55,999 --> 00:33:59,474 At the beginning of 2001 the received wisdom 411 00:33:59,694 --> 00:34:02,565 was that the eleventh dimension was a tranquil place 412 00:34:02,822 --> 00:34:06,680 with membrane universes gently floating in it, 413 00:34:07,433 --> 00:34:10,794 but Burt suggested a much more exciting idea. 414 00:34:12,225 --> 00:34:18,450 Universes moving through the eleventh dimension like giant, turbulent waves. 415 00:34:19,246 --> 00:34:21,715 These things can move. They are not static, 416 00:34:22,015 --> 00:34:25,400 they're, you know, like everything else in the world they can move around 417 00:34:27,525 --> 00:34:29,366 and there's not much room for them to move in. 418 00:34:29,366 --> 00:34:33,400 In fact if they move they're very likely to bang into each other. 419 00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:36,575 In fact they either move away from each other, or they bang into each other, 420 00:34:36,875 --> 00:34:41,975 and one thing that had occurred to me very early on is what happens if they collide? 421 00:35:02,310 --> 00:35:05,948 To a new generation of cosmologists like Neil Turok 422 00:35:06,347 --> 00:35:10,375 Burt's vision of the eleventh dimension sounded intriguing, 423 00:35:10,737 --> 00:35:14,100 but he and his colleagues had other things on their mind. 424 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:18,300 They were still wrestling with the big problems of cosmology. 425 00:35:20,850 --> 00:35:26,102 Was there a beginning? Did time continue before the Big Bang? 426 00:35:26,524 --> 00:35:28,875 Where did the Universe come from? 427 00:35:30,636 --> 00:35:35,691 Above all, they were still trying to solve the biggest problem of all: 428 00:35:36,250 --> 00:35:41,275 what caused the very start of the Big Bang, the singularity? 429 00:35:44,575 --> 00:35:47,450 Nobody has a solution for the singularity problem 430 00:35:47,750 --> 00:35:53,883 other than essentially by hand starting the Universe at a certain time 431 00:35:54,183 --> 00:35:58,164 and saying let's go from there and let's not worry about what happened before 432 00:35:58,473 --> 00:36:00,350 and that's very unsatisfactory. 433 00:36:03,111 --> 00:36:06,011 This is the deepest problem in cosmology. 434 00:36:06,715 --> 00:36:08,674 If you can get through the singularity 435 00:36:08,904 --> 00:36:12,050 you're on your way to a complete theory of the Universe. 436 00:36:13,369 --> 00:36:18,102 Most cosmologists have begun to think they might never find a solution. 437 00:36:18,628 --> 00:36:23,053 They'd almost given up completely, which is when Turok and his colleagues 438 00:36:23,472 --> 00:36:27,625 heard Burt explain his idea properly for the first time. 439 00:36:38,550 --> 00:36:42,225 At a conference in Cambridge pioneers of M Theory 440 00:36:42,287 --> 00:36:45,550 had been brought together to explore its implications. 441 00:36:47,378 --> 00:36:53,098 Burt was the star of the show. His vision of a violent eleventh dimension 442 00:36:53,398 --> 00:36:59,215 wowed the assembled physicists and caught the attention of the cosmologists. 443 00:36:59,434 --> 00:37:02,379 We heard about a vast variety of ideas. 444 00:37:03,713 --> 00:37:09,311 The ideas that struck both Neil and myself most strongly 445 00:37:09,686 --> 00:37:11,975 were the ideas that Burt presented. 446 00:37:15,455 --> 00:37:17,196 On the last day of the conference 447 00:37:17,496 --> 00:37:21,550 Neil Turok, Paul Steinhardt and Burt decided to take time out. 448 00:37:22,516 --> 00:37:24,172 They went to see a play. 449 00:37:24,325 --> 00:37:26,875 We wanted to see the play Copenhagen 450 00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,450 which was being performed in London at the time 451 00:37:29,585 --> 00:37:32,707 and the three of us took the train down to London one evening 452 00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,075 and we had whatever it was, an hour or so on the train 453 00:37:37,075 --> 00:37:40,300 to sit and talk about these ideas. 454 00:37:42,011 --> 00:37:45,078 On the journey they began to throw ideas around. 455 00:37:45,403 --> 00:37:50,458 Three physicists, one train, and the biggest secret about our Universe: 456 00:37:50,737 --> 00:37:52,625 what caused the Big Bang. 457 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,975 I think people get the wrong impression about about scientists in that 458 00:37:55,975 --> 00:38:00,875 they think in an orderly, rigid way from step 1 to step 3. 459 00:38:01,650 --> 00:38:05,950 What really happens that often you make some imaginative leap 460 00:38:05,950 --> 00:38:09,425 which at the time may seem nonsensical. 461 00:38:10,325 --> 00:38:14,725 you capture the field at those stages it looks like poetry 462 00:38:15,075 --> 00:38:19,125 in which you are imagining without yet proving. 463 00:38:19,350 --> 00:38:22,900 Paul, Burt and me were sitting together on the train 464 00:38:23,725 --> 00:38:26,371 and just free associating. 465 00:38:27,350 --> 00:38:30,475 One of us, maybe it was me, began by saying 466 00:38:30,475 --> 00:38:33,225 "Oh, well why can't we make a universe out of collision?", and 467 00:38:33,225 --> 00:38:34,925 Neil sort of pitching in and saying "Well, 468 00:38:35,075 --> 00:38:38,625 if you did that then you could create all the matter and radiation of the Universe", 469 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,375 so we had this conversation, one of us completing the sentences of the other 470 00:38:42,375 --> 00:38:45,650 in which we kind of just, just let our imaginations go. 471 00:38:47,275 --> 00:38:49,320 And as we went along, 472 00:38:50,375 --> 00:38:54,175 at least I learned more and more about how it might be possible 473 00:38:54,410 --> 00:38:59,450 to have these brane collisions produce all of the effects of the early Universe 474 00:38:59,450 --> 00:39:02,500 and in particular it's just easy to do with my hands, 475 00:39:02,500 --> 00:39:05,525 when they collide you might have a Big Bang. 476 00:39:12,132 --> 00:39:18,927 And the Big Bang is the aftermath of some encounter between two parallel worlds. 477 00:39:23,834 --> 00:39:28,496 But how could such a collision go on to cause the world we know? 478 00:39:29,388 --> 00:39:36,343 The Universe we live in has vast clumps of matter we call stars and galaxies. 479 00:39:36,809 --> 00:39:40,964 We know that things are not smooth out in the Universe. 480 00:39:41,240 --> 00:39:45,302 In fact we have little clumps, we have stars, we have galaxies, 481 00:39:45,521 --> 00:39:49,717 we have quasars, we have clumps of matter. 482 00:39:50,793 --> 00:39:55,871 Now they had to explain how the collision of two parallel universes 483 00:39:56,177 --> 00:39:59,950 could go on to create these lumps of matter. 484 00:40:01,107 --> 00:40:06,598 Was there something about the membranes, or branes, which could explain it? 485 00:40:08,873 --> 00:40:12,509 People tended to think of branes as being 486 00:40:12,809 --> 00:40:18,252 flat, perfect sheets, geometrical plains, 487 00:40:18,556 --> 00:40:25,141 but I think to us it was clear that that picture could not be correct. 488 00:40:25,896 --> 00:40:30,111 It cannot be perfectly flat. It has to ripple. 489 00:40:32,813 --> 00:40:34,800 What would happen as these branes approach 490 00:40:34,854 --> 00:40:37,637 that there are ripples in the surface of each brane 491 00:40:37,906 --> 00:40:42,106 and when they come together they don't hit at exactly the same time, same place, 492 00:40:42,250 --> 00:40:44,850 but in fact they hit at different points and at different times. 493 00:40:45,025 --> 00:40:48,150 We found that as the brane moves it literally ripples, 494 00:40:48,325 --> 00:40:54,363 so when the collision takes place it imparts those ripples into real matter. 495 00:40:55,350 --> 00:41:00,309 The parallel universes move through the eleventh dimension like waves 496 00:41:00,873 --> 00:41:04,666 and like any wave these would ripple. 497 00:41:04,938 --> 00:41:10,225 It was the ripples which went on to cause the clumps of matter after the Big Bang. 498 00:41:18,775 --> 00:41:24,500 They finally had their complete explanation of the birth of our Universe 499 00:41:27,300 --> 00:41:31,156 and now they could do something even more profound. 500 00:41:32,649 --> 00:41:35,388 They could take the laws of physics back in time 501 00:41:35,388 --> 00:41:40,075 to the moment of the Big Bang and through to the other side. 502 00:41:41,100 --> 00:41:44,300 The existence of branes before the singularity 503 00:41:44,513 --> 00:41:47,882 implies there was time before the Big Bang. 504 00:41:48,350 --> 00:41:51,950 Time could, can be followed through the initial singularity. 505 00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,275 You sort of go back and back and back 506 00:41:54,275 --> 00:41:58,550 until you get near the place where the expansion would have taken place 507 00:41:58,969 --> 00:42:02,750 and then it just sort of changes into another world. 508 00:42:04,172 --> 00:42:05,973 When the branes collide 509 00:42:06,335 --> 00:42:10,264 the collision of those can be explained within M Theory, 510 00:42:11,175 --> 00:42:16,008 so it just simply enters the realm of mathematics and science now 511 00:42:16,175 --> 00:42:19,100 rather than being a, an unknown point that exploded. 512 00:42:24,150 --> 00:42:26,612 The singularity had disappeared 513 00:42:27,075 --> 00:42:30,200 and it had taken them just under an hour. 514 00:42:30,807 --> 00:42:32,650 Then we went to see the play. 515 00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:50,037 This idea is so new it's only begun to be discussed, 516 00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:59,182 but if it's accepted it will mean Einstein's missing theory has finally been found. 517 00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:05,800 M Theory may really be able to explain everything in the Universe, 518 00:43:07,675 --> 00:43:10,075 but the victory will be bittersweet, 519 00:43:11,550 --> 00:43:15,200 for at the end of its long quest, science has discovered 520 00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:19,700 that the Universe it sought to explain may be nothing special. 521 00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:25,175 It is nothing more than one of an infinite number of membranes, 522 00:43:25,725 --> 00:43:30,475 just one of the many universes which make up the multiverse. 523 00:43:32,725 --> 00:43:34,908 The latest understanding of the multiverse 524 00:43:35,208 --> 00:43:38,175 is that there could be an infinite number of universes 525 00:43:38,175 --> 00:43:40,900 each with a different law of physics. 526 00:43:44,475 --> 00:43:47,573 Big Bangs probably take place all the time. 527 00:43:48,083 --> 00:43:52,225 Our Universe co-exists with other membranes, other universes 528 00:43:52,225 --> 00:43:54,775 which are also in the process of expansion. 529 00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:03,350 Our Universe could be just one bubble floating in an ocean of other bubbles. 530 00:44:13,750 --> 00:44:16,784 But this isn't quite the end of the story. 531 00:44:17,450 --> 00:44:22,425 Now that the Theory of Everything may have been found some are keen to use it. 532 00:44:22,725 --> 00:44:26,350 Physics is preparing for the ultimate flight of fancy: 533 00:44:27,863 --> 00:44:30,089 to make a universe of its very own 534 00:44:30,389 --> 00:44:35,300 without any mysteries or unanswered questions at all. 535 00:44:36,150 --> 00:44:40,625 I in fact have worked with several other people for some period of time 536 00:44:40,694 --> 00:44:43,275 on the question of whether or not it's in principle possible 537 00:44:43,275 --> 00:44:46,125 to create a new universe in the laboratory. 538 00:44:50,125 --> 00:44:52,114 Whether or not it really works we don't know for sure. 539 00:44:52,250 --> 00:44:53,775 It looks like it probably would work. 540 00:44:54,550 --> 00:44:57,625 It's actually safe to create a universe in your basement. 541 00:44:58,375 --> 00:45:00,900 It would not displace the universe around it 542 00:45:00,900 --> 00:45:02,900 even though it would grow tremendously. 543 00:45:03,100 --> 00:45:06,675 It would actually create its own space as it grows 544 00:45:06,975 --> 00:45:09,725 and in fact in a very short fraction of a second 545 00:45:09,725 --> 00:45:13,125 it would splice itself off completely from our Universe 546 00:45:13,125 --> 00:45:17,000 and evolve as an isolated closed universe 547 00:45:17,625 --> 00:45:19,925 growing to cosmic proportions 548 00:45:20,020 --> 00:45:24,723 without displacing any of the territory that we currently lay claim to.