The Religious urge for Multiverse
The Constant Reader may remember that I have problems with the current craze for resolving every ambiguity of physics with the concept of "multiverse." Now, Lee Smolin, a founding member and research physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, has challenged other physicists to work out the implications of a single universe: Smolin explains how theories describing a myriad of possible universes, with less or more dimensions and different kinds of particles and forces, have become increasingly popular in the last few years. However, through his work with the Brazilian philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Smolin believes that, despite there being good reasons for the conclusion that we live in a timeless multiverse, those theories, and the concomitant assumption that time is not a fundamental concept, are "profoundly mistaken". Smolin points out why a timeless multiverse means that our laws of physics are no longer determi...