Are Branes the Key to Understanding Multiple Universes?

[Gold Barz]

Are "Branes" = Universes?

When they say "branes" colliding to make a universe...do they mean universes crashing into each other to make a brand new universe?

 

[Garth]

Yes - what you might call a "hair-brane" scheme?
Actually they don't make a new universe, they have an impact on each other and produce the conditions required for a Big Bang in each.

Garth

 

[Gold Barz]

So in a brane there is a universe or is it the other way around?

 

[Chronos]

Branes are an extension of string theory. Since string theory is still looking for an experimental leg to stand on, the notion of colliding branes mostly just bruises mine.

 

[Gold Barz]

but are branes = universes or are they not the same, i guess my question is do we live in a brane?

 

[Garth]

Yes - As Chronos said it is very speculative, however the idea is that our universe is a membrane in a higher dimensional world together with other membranes - or "branes" for short. They move around and occasionally collide with each other producing an effect that we observe in our membrane as a Big Bang. The theory is able to produce a lot of the characteristics of our universe observed to emerge from the Big Bang, however the collision itself has to be very carefully set up and therefore you can argue whether it actually explains anything at all!
Garth

 

[Gold Barz]

Thank you Garth, and would the higher dimension universes have different laws, I would assume that they would

 

[shrumeo]

My lay impression of what branes and strings are after they were explained to me is that they are "made" out of whatever spacetime is "made" out of. That they are just geometric objects that arise out of "math" and "logic." That they are more location than object.

I actually have no clue what they may be. If they are "made of" something, then they aren't fundamental.

?

 

[Garth]

Thank you Garth, and would the higher dimension universes have different laws, I would assume that they would

God knows!