It has been a while since I have written about the "Multiverse" concept. So I better write about it now, because it may soon be as fashionable and writing about the errors of Phlogiston Theory.

As the logical conclusion of prevailing assumptions, the multiverse hypothesis has surged in begrudging popularity in recent years. But the argument feels like a cop-out to many, or at least a huge letdown. A universe shaped by chance cancellations eludes understanding, and the existence of unreachable, alien universes may be impossible to prove. “And it’s pretty unsatisfactory to use the multiverse hypothesis to explain only things we don’t understand,” said Graham Ross, an emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oxford. 

The multiverse ennui can’t last forever.

After all the hype surrounding the search for evidence of the Higgs Boson, the search for additional particles appears to have come a cropper:

When the Large Hadron Collider at CERN Laboratory in Geneva closed down for upgrades in early 2013, its collisions had failed to yield any of dozens of particles that many theorists had included in their equations for more than 30 years. The grand flop suggests that researchers may have taken a wrong turn decades ago in their understanding of how to calculate the masses of particles.

When these particles went missing, some physicists went back to the idea of what is missing in the Standard Model and have advanced an idea called "Scale Symmetry."

This little-explored idea, known as scale symmetry, constitutes a radical departure from long-standing assumptions about how elementary particles acquire their properties. But it has recently emerged as a common theme of numerous talks and papers by respected particle physicists. With their field stuck at a nasty impasse, the researchers have returned to the master equations that describe the known particles and their interactions, and are asking: What happens when you erase the terms in the equations having to do with mass and length?

Nature, at the deepest level, may not differentiate between scales. 

So, at some basic level, size doesn't matter.

What hold Scale Symmetry back from full recognition? Ghosts!

However, the theory has what most experts consider a serious flaw: It requires the existence of strange particle-like entities called “ghosts.” Ghosts either have negative energies or negative probabilities of existing — both of which wreak havoc on the equations of the quantum world.

So, when Big Bang Theory returns with new episodes this fall, don't roll your eyes. Dr. Sheldon Cooper's new field of research might be hunting ghosts.





http://www.wired.com/2014/08/multiverse/