Need Research Question Related to Multiverse (High School Level)

[shaz.662]

I am new to this, but in desperate need of help. I'm doing the IB and in our final two years of school we are required to write an essay (extended essay) on one of our chosen subjects. I chose to write an essay on physics and my topic is parallel universes. However, I am really stuck as the physics is beyond my level of understanding. I need some ideas that I could write a 4000 word essay about. (The essay would be mainly research based) Thank you

 

[Vorde]

You could talk about the various kinds of multiverse theories (like parallel universes vs multiverse) and their various observational evidences. But I'm not sure how long you could stretch that.

 

[Chalnoth]

I am new to this, but in desperate need of help. I'm doing the IB and in our final two years of school we are required to write an essay (extended essay) on one of our chosen subjects. I chose to write an essay on physics and my topic is parallel universes. However, I am really stuck as the physics is beyond my level of understanding. I need some ideas that I could write a 4000 word essay about. (The essay would be mainly research based) Thank you

Tegmark's got a good website on this stuff:
http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html

He organizes in a reasonable fashion the different multiverse ideas, and adds a new one that he has proposed himself. It might be a good idea for an essay at this level to not go for the mathematical universe hypothesis, but his overview of the other multiverse ideas is quite good.

 

[shaz.662]

The website has a lot of information about the multiverse. I am also familiar with the various levels of universes. However, the problem presists that I cannot formulate a research question in this field. e.g. How does the density of liquid affect the waves created. I need a question realted to multiverse in that sense. It cannot be a descriptive essay, to some extent it needs to answer a question.

 

[Chalnoth]

The website has a lot of information about the multiverse. I am also familiar with the various levels of universes. However, the problem presists that I cannot formulate a research question in this field. e.g. How does the density of liquid affect the waves created. I need a question realted to multiverse in that sense. It cannot be a descriptive essay, to some extent it needs to answer a question.

Well, there is basically no way to tie most of the multiverse ideas to any sort of experiment at the current time. The quantum multiverse is (sort of) an exception, as quantum decoherence, the essential component of the quantum multiverse, has been experimentally demonstrated:
http://www.atomwave.org/rmparticle/ao%20refs/aifm%20refs%20sorted%20by%20topic/decoherence%20refs/BHD96.pdf

So you could focus on that point. Or, alternatively, you could argue given what we know in other areas why a particular multiverse idea is likely or unlikely to describe reality.

 

[Mark M]

The multiverse of eternal inflation does offer testable predictions relating to variations in the cosmic microwave background. This paper details how the CMB can provide evidence of an eternal inflationary multiverse.

 

[Chalnoth]

The multiverse of eternal inflation does offer testable predictions relating to variations in the cosmic microwave background. This paper details how the CMB can provide evidence of an eternal inflationary multiverse.

Well, sort of. It leads to the possibility of particular kinds of random features that may, even if this particular kind of multiverse is true, not even be there at all. So it's a potential experimental result, but a very weak one.

 

[Ken G]

Come to your senses and choose a different topic! It is highly questionable if the multiverse idea is even science at all, and you are looking to answer a question about it? Bad idea, find something you are interested in but is much more clear-cut the kinds of scientific questions it connects with.

 

[Chalnoth]

Come to your senses and choose a different topic! It is highly questionable if the multiverse idea is even science at all,

Many multiverse ideas are most definitely science. They're just rather difficult science.

 

[Ken G]

Many multiverse ideas are most definitely science.

I'd be curious to hear even one good example, indeed an example of any type of distribution anywhere that we can learn something about and do science on when we are limited to experiments on one single member of that "distribution."

 

[Chalnoth]

I'd be curious to hear even one good example, indeed an example of any type of distribution anywhere that we can learn something about and do science on when we are limited to experiments on one single member of that "distribution."

See the paper posted by Mark M earlier in this thread for one example. Or the one I posted which (obliquely) tests the many worlds multiverse.

 

[Ken G]

Those don't qualify, as the first is a "fringe" paper, not in the sense of being "crackpot" but in the sense that it has no clear connection to mainstream astronomy and would tend to be ignored by mainstream astronomers who are mostly not "multiverse enthusiasts", and the one you cited is about decoherence (a standard quantum phenomenon with no obvious connection whatsoever to any multiverse). There are always lots of highly speculative things getting published all the time, with very little chance of making any kind of mark on mainstream science. The problem is, it's not enough to simply be able to say that I have some theory that makes predictions to count as mainstream science, though it isn't pseudoscience either, it's just questionable that it isn't some detour from the scientific process. The predictions have to be falsifiable, not just shots in the dark. There is never going to be any way to falsify a multiverse, if the observations go against one multiverse prediction, they can always just modify the multiverse to accommodate the observations, and if the predictions happen to work, well, there's always coincidence.

A classic example of this is Weinberg's celebrated "prediction" that the cosmological constant would come out to about 70% of the needed energy to flatten the universe. The fact that we exist certainly does constrain that parameter, but how is that a "prediction"-- we already knew we existed, we already knew the expansion is constrained by that, so I'm predicting that the expansion has to be constrained by my existence? How is that science? It was more like a test on GR than anything else-- had it not been correct, we would still know we are here, so if the expansion was incorrectly constrained by our presence, then our theory would have had to have been wrong. But the wrong theory would have been GR with a cosmological constant, not a multiverse. There is never any way to falsify a multiverse, simply because no one can ever do any observations on it, so it is completely unconstrained and can be moved and modified any way that is needed to fit the observations, consistent with the obvious things we already know (like that we are here).

So bringing it back to the OP, I'm saying that multiverse "science" is a terrible topic for an actual investigation, it would only be suitable for a descriptive paper along the lines of "this is what is currently being thought about on the fringes of science where it is not clear that mainstream astronomy or physics will ever embrace these notions." It is highly unsuited for a paper along the lines of "here is my investigation into X and here is what I learned about our universe by doing so," which the OPer seems to be saying is what is required for this project. You can certainly not agree with me that multiverse thinking is highly questionable science, all that matters is we are agreed that it makes a lousy investigative project that attempts to do anything more than just report on what the oracles are saying. I think it's a fascinating topic, but one more along the lines of scientific sociology than investigative learning.

 

[Chalnoth]

Those don't qualify, as the first is a "fringe" paper, not in the sense of being "crackpot" but in the sense that it has no clear connection to mainstream astronomy and would tend to be ignored by mainstream astronomers who are mostly not "multiverse enthusiasts", and the one you cited is about decoherence (a standard quantum phenomenon with no obvious connection whatsoever to any multiverse).

Well, sure, if you throw out everything that demonstrates you're wrong, you'll never be convinced of anything. Making up nonsensical restrictions on what is or is not science is just an excuse to throw out ideas you have an emotional aversion to.

 

[marcus]

Come to your senses and choose a different topic! ...

...
So bringing it back to the OP, I'm saying that multiverse "science" is a terrible topic for an actual investigation, ...

That sure seems like good sound advice based on what I've seen of it.

Ideally, such advice might be offered along with some help finding an alternative research topic. Do you have any ideas? I'll try to think. Maybe Shaz can tell us some other areas or questions that stimulate excitement/curiosity.

 

[Ken G]

Well, sure, if you throw out everything that demonstrates you're wrong, you'll never be convinced of anything. Making up nonsensical restrictions on what is or is not science is just an excuse to throw out ideas you have an emotional aversion to.

Actually, I thought I was quite clear on the objections I raised. Now let's look at what you are doing-- you are claiming that a perfectly mainstream investigation into quantum decoherence in a measurement is actually an investigation into the multiverse! That's a little worse than just "oblique."

 

[Chalnoth]

Actually, I thought I was quite clear on the objections I raised. Now let's look at what you are doing-- you are claiming that a perfectly mainstream investigation into quantum decoherence in a measurement is actually an investigation into the multiverse! That's a little worse than just "oblique."

The existence of quantum decoherence demonstrates that wave function collapse is observationally unnecessary. This leads inexorably to the many worlds interpretation (or at least something that is essentially the same in its primary implications).

But no, you were clear. You were clearly wrong. What you said about the limits of science in your post has pretty much nothing to do with how a great deal of main-stream science is actually practiced in the real world.

 

[Ken G]

Ideally, such advice might be offered along with some help finding an alternative research topic. Do you have any ideas?

I agree it would be nice to offer a constructive suggestion, but it is exactly the problem with multiverse thinking that it is hard to come up with a physical principle that is "kind of like the multiverse" but closer to a mainstream project that a high school student could actually do. But perhaps we could take the fundamental idea behind multiverse thinking, which is that you can get seemingly very unlikely outcomes if you have a stringent enough selection criterion that you apply to a large enough sample.

The classic example of this would be if you were a newsperson who was interviewing people who had won a lottery. You might start to think that winning lotteries was fairly commonplace after interviewing 10 winners, and forgetting that they were selected from a huge sample of non-winners. Accounting for the non-winners would help return you to an understanding of how rare winning a lottery really is. But note the key difference here-- we could actually interview the non-winners too! That's exactly what you cannot do with a project on the multiverse.

But maybe Shaz could do an investigation of unlikely events, and show that they can actually happen if you select from a large enough sample. If he/she wants to aim the conclusions at insights into multiverse thinking, that's up to him/her, but the actual project could be much more mainstream science. Or another interesting take could be to flip a coin 10 times, record the sequence of outcomes, and calculate the probability of exactly that set of outcomes. It will be 1/2¹⁰ of course, which is a number like 1/1,000, so that might qualify as an "extremely unlikely event." But we can all see that it had to come out an extremely unlikely event, so what does this tell us about the meaning of unlikely events? It says that to be counted as unlikely (or "finely tuned"), you need to be considering a particular outcome before you know what happened, not after you know. That is also trying to tell us something about the validity of multiverse thinking. So maybe there's some kind of "investigation into unlikely events" here, that can be connected in some way with the multiverse idea, if Shaz really wants the investigation to be about that somewhat indirectly.

 

[marcus]

Well Ken, how about this. Imagine you are a high school student and you need an IB "thesis" project. How about an essay titled "Dark Matter"

or "Dark Matter and Structure Formation"

The essay is in two parts A and B

Part A discusses the EVIDENCE for DM, primarily the Bullet Cluster, which is highly visual
evidence, and goes over the other types of evidence lightly, verbally.

Part B discusses the computer simulations that visually present how the largescale STRUCTURE or patterns of strands and clusters and voids that we SEE can have come about by gradual gravity pulling things together HELPED by Dark Matter. Indeed since there is so much more DM, 5 or 6 times more than ordinary type, it seems to have coalesced to form the basic cobwebby skeleton that ordinary matter then condensed on. That's how the computer simulations suggest it happened.

That again is something that can be presented visually and verbally (instead of needing math equations) because there are a lot of computer animations and still shots available if you dig around for them. Like from that website at the University of Chicago. I forget the guy's name but he is in the credits of George Smoot's TED talk.

I would advise you (the putative high school student) to start by watching the 18-minute highly visual talk by Nobel prizewinner George Smoot about how the basic structure of the universe formed. You get it by googling "Smoot TED"

The organization TED is an audience of very smart non-specialist general-thinkers who sponsor non-mathematical talks that communicate to layman audience, on topics in science that they consider exciting or fertile. I would say that the TED audience represents about the right level for a smart high school thesis. Intelligent at a verbal/visual/intuitive level but not mathy-mathy.

The letters TED stand for Technology Entertainment Design because the original founders of the group were West Coast Industry people like Los Angeles and Silicon Valley and computer animation and new products and markets and big picture people who always want to be at the leading edge wherever that is. Their motto is "Ideas worth Sharing".

There are about a dozen 18 minute TED talks that I would recommend a HS student watch, on all kinds of topics. They identify hot ideas, get to the gist in 18 minutes, and do it in a very visual (mathematically shallow) way. Not academic, little or no jargon and footnotes.
They do a valuable service, I think. Talks on artificial intelligence, human psychology, genetic engineering, animal behavior, social evolution, the LHC, the future, all kinds of things.

So I would say google "Smoot TED" and watch the 18 minute lecture+slide show and watch especially for some one or two minute animated movies of the condensation of Dark Matter into strands clusters voids which strikingly resemble the large scale patterns we actually observe in visible ordinary matter.

 

[Ken G]

Well Ken, how about this. Imagine you are a high school student and you need an IB "thesis" project. How about an essay titled "Dark Matter"

or "Dark Matter and Structure Formation"

The essay is in two parts A and B

Part A discusses the EVIDENCE for DM, primarily the Bullet Cluster, which is highly visual
evidence, and goes over the other types of evidence lightly, verbally.

Part B discusses the computer simulations that visually present how the largescale STRUCTURE or patterns of strands and clusters and voids that we SEE can have come about by gradual gravity pulling things together HELPED by Dark Matter. Indeed since there is so much more DM, 5 or 6 times more than ordinary type, it seems to have coalesced to form the basic cobwebby skeleton that ordinary matter then condensed on. That's how the computer simulations suggest it happened.

I think that would be a great idea for certain types of presentations, mostly of the descriptive or educational type. But I got the sense that Shaz's project, which he/she says is a two-year project, is supposed to involve something that he/she can investigate themself. It's not clear, but they said: "How does the density of liquid affect the waves created. I need a question realted to multiverse in that sense. It cannot be a descriptive essay, to some extent it needs to answer a question." So I'm not real clear what the needs are when it "cannot be a descriptive essay," it might mean they would have to write their own computer program rather than just report on one. That would be too difficult, so I think they need a project that is more accessible than the current frontiers of astronomy! But they'll need to come back on and tell us more about the requirements. And yes, those TED talks are really great, in any area.

 

[Chalnoth]

I think that would be a great idea for certain types of presentations, mostly of the descriptive or educational type. But I got the sense that Shaz's project, which he/she says is a two-year project, is supposed to involve something that he/she can investigate themself.

At the high school level, I don't think so. It sounds more like a project which requires a student to investigate a particular area and use existing scientific results to argue a point. I don't think it's really meant to be a project which takes a full two years, but rather that has to be done sometime within those two years.

And within that scope, I don't think investigating the multiverse is at all out of bounds. Obviously no hands-on experiments can be done, but then that's true of all of cosmology.

It seems to me that a more reasonable way to do the project, if I am understanding correctly its aims, would be to consider a recent scientific question and examine the evidence and arguments that have been presented surrounding that question. And there are definitely ways to examine some multiverse idea in this framework. Simply providing a summary of the multiverse ideas would not be sufficient, of course. But it is very reasonable to take one specific idea and present the arguments and evidence for or against that specific multiverse idea.

It's very possible, for example, to examine the many worlds of quantum mechanics. The essay would first describe what the many worlds interpretation is, then it would proceed to examine the competing ideas, and summarize the arguments that people have used for or against some of the main interpretations of quantum mechanics.

I don't see any reason why this project requires a definitive answer be presented, just that the question should be examined in some depth.

And yes, those TED talks are really great, in any area.

TED has, sadly, been courting pseudoscience lately. For instance:
http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/2012/06/03/numeric-pareidolia-and-vortex-math/

 

[Ken G]

I'll agree that the Rodin Solution is total baloney, and obviously so, but maybe we shouldn't judge TED based on one slip-up. It is surprising they could be bamboozled that easily, however-- it's really obvious hooey.

Getting back to the project, you're probably right that they are not expecting him to reproduce any real research, but instead just address a clearly answerable question. But still, these things are so much better if the question is cut and dried! Of course it's up to Shaz, but I really can't see any chance of coming up with anything coherent based on summarizing the "evidence" for or against multiverses, or quantum many worlds either for that matter. We have a hard enough time having a coherent discussion of those topics among fairly expert people on this forum! Don't attempt it Shaz, you won't have any idea what you are doing. It's not too late to choose a real physics topic!

 

[Chalnoth]

Getting back to the project, you're probably right that they are not expecting him to reproduce any real research, but instead just address a clearly answerable question. But still, these things are so much better if the question is cut and dried!

There are many questions about the multiverse that are clearly cut and dried, however. There aren't so many answers that are quite so clear, because the topic itself is difficult to investigate, but I don't see why the state of our own ignorance should necessarily stand in the way of tackling the topic.

I will admit that it is a harder topic than, for instance, dark matter, because we know quite a lot more about dark matter than about the various multiverse ideas. But that doesn't make it impossible. Nor even a bad idea, as that depends upon the teacher.

Of course it's up to Shaz, but I really can't see any chance of coming up with anything coherent based on summarizing the "evidence" for or against multiverses, or quantum many worlds either for that matter. We have a hard enough time having a coherent discussion of those topics among fairly expert people on this forum! Don't attempt it Shaz, you won't have any idea what you are doing. It's not too late to choose a real physics topic!

Just because you choose to ignore the evidence we do have doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[marcus]

...
TED has, sadly, been courting pseudoscience lately...

Please give an example of an actual TED event before making derogatory statements, Chally.
The example you gave is of a TEDx event. These are "imitation" independently organized TED-like events, anybody anywhere and they decide whom to invite. The TED organization gives general guidelines but do not choose the speakers and are not responsible for content.

Here is the particular TEDx that got the speaker Rodin:
http://www.tedxcharlotte.com/

The actual TED program has been so successful that imitation TED-like events have sprung up in many countries. In Holland they held a TEDxAmsterdam that had someone I respect a lot, Peter Woit, explaining why what he calls Multiverse Mania is pseudoscience and what he thinks has gone wrong with the String program.

I think Peter Woit is respectable and has valuable things to say. I have no interest in this person Marko Rodin who spoke at Charlotte North Carolina, never heard of him. My point is that TEDx is a mixed bag and does not reflect on the actual TED series. TED itself may have some fringe speakers! I do not know. Find some genuine examples, if you want.
But not to use some little imitation event with an off-beat speaker to tar the reputation of the main program.

I stand by recommendation of the TED (actual) talk of George Smoot. I think it is excellent for wide audience cosmology. Packs a lot into 18 minutes. One of the better talks by Nobel Laureate physics people.

 

[marcus]

...Just because you choose to ignore the evidence we do have doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I don't recall your ever giving an especially persuasive evidence for the existence of alternate universes.

I recall at one point, when pressed, you gave the example that there might, in effect, be regions in our universe with varying dark matter density. I thought it was stretching a point to call that a multiverse. Not what people ordinarily think of.

I think there are assumptions and scenarios, not evidence. One makes some assumptions about how things work and on that basis, if inflation works such and such a way, it would produce several quite different regions. But in no case do we KNOW that inflation and whatever works in the particular way imagined.

So in my case I do not "choose to ignore" evidence. I have not seen any that lives up to the traditional standards of empirical science.

Dark Matter is different, there is a lot of very interesting material evidence, density contour maps one can examine etc, of various types. There is a sharp qualitative difference. You can see that in the major international conferences. They exclude Multiverse speakers from the ones where I've examined the programs. The Multiverse fad began to die down around 2007 I estimate. It has become increasingly fringe since 2007 or 2008.

By contrast DM is definitely real science. Serious research efforts, funding, visibility at major conferences and so forth. My impression anyway.

We will see how the GR conference goes next year (it is held every three years and next one is 2013).
Here's this years main cosmology-related event: MG-13 in Stockholm:
http://www.icra.it/mg/mg13/invited_speakers_details.htm
http://www.icra.it/mg/mg13/parallel_sessions.htm

 

[Chalnoth]

Please give an example of an actual TED event before making derogatory statements, Chally.
The example you gave is of a TEDx event. These are "imitation" independently organized TED-like events, anybody anywhere and they decide whom to invite. The TED organization gives general guidelines but do not choose the speakers and are not responsible for content.

Here is the particular TEDx that got the speaker Rodin:
http://www.tedxcharlotte.com/

The actual TED program has been so successful that imitation TED-like events have sprung up in many countries. In Holland they held a TEDxAmsterdam that had someone I respect a lot, Peter Woit, explaining why what he calls Multiverse Mania is pseudoscience and what he thinks has gone wrong with the String program.

I think Peter Woit is respectable and has valuable things to say. I have no interest in this person Marko Rodin who spoke at Charlotte North Carolina, never heard of him. My point is that TEDx is a mixed bag and does not reflect on the actual TED series. TED itself may have some fringe speakers! I do not know. Find some genuine examples, if you want.
But not to use some little imitation event with an off-beat speaker to tar the reputation of the main program.

I stand by recommendation of the TED (actual) talk of George Smoot. I think it is excellent for wide audience cosmology. Packs a lot into 18 minutes. One of the better talks by Nobel Laureate physics people.

Well, I've also seen a number of good TED talks, but I generally think it's foolish to oversell them. I've also seen talks that I felt were decidedly poor. I don't, however, feel like going into detail here as it would just further derail the thread.

 

[Chalnoth]

I don't recall your ever giving an especially persuasive evidence for the existence of alternate universes.

I think that's just because you have assumed a default position that is unreasonable to assume. The proper thing to do is to try to abstract yourself from any sort of default position, and then take the theory which best matches the evidence with the fewest assumptions as the most likely.

With the previous example I gave of the test of quantum decoherence, for instance, we have clear and unambiguous evidence of a quantum multiverse, provided you accept the evidence for quantum decoherence is clear and unambiguous. This is because the mere fact of decoherence produces two separate branches of the same original wavefunction which can no longer interact on reasonable timescales. That fact places those two branches of the wavefunction effectively in different worlds.

You can try to get around this by saying, "But those experiments are all on small scale! This doesn't prove that the same sort of thing happens on the scale of humans!" And this is very much true. But it's also besides the point: in order to claim that quantum decoherence doesn't explain the appearance of wavefunction collapse on the level of humans, you need to assume some extra physical process occurs for which there is no evidence.

The default claim given the evidence, then, clearly should be the many worlds of quantum mechanics. Anything that states that there are no such extra branches of the wavefunction is making unreasonable assumptions that are nowhere in evidence and have nothing to back them but human prejudice.

Similar arguments about the existence of other regions of the universe with different low-energy physical laws can be made, though the evidence there is a bit more flimsy, because our state of knowledge of high-energy physics isn't all that great. But if we were to accept that the laws of high-energy physics unambiguously allow for the existence of other regions of the universe with different low-energy physics, then that would be unambiguous evidence for the existence of other such regions.

 

[Ken G]

There are many questions about the multiverse that are clearly cut and dried, however. There aren't so many answers that are quite so clear, because the topic itself is difficult to investigate, but I don't see why the state of our own ignorance should necessarily stand in the way of tackling the topic.

I guess we'll have to leave it up to Shaz, and the ultimate success or failure of his/her project, to decide what advise being given is actually good, and what advise is actually bad.

 

[Ken G]

With the previous example I gave of the test of quantum decoherence, for instance, we have clear and unambiguous evidence of a quantum multiverse, provided you accept the evidence for quantum decoherence is clear and unambiguous. This is because the mere fact of decoherence produces two separate branches of the same original wavefunction which can no longer interact on reasonable timescales. That fact places those two branches of the wavefunction effectively in different worlds.

There are two main errors in your claims:
1) You are mistaking quantum "many worlds" for a "multiverse". Those are two quite different things, for the simple reason that one can embrace or reject either, independently of each other. See the Max Tegmark hierarchy. Shaz was talking about the use of the "landscape" in cosmology, not the "many worlds interpretation" of quantum mechanics, which is something quite different.

2) Worse, you are claiming that some kind of observational evidence exists for the many worlds interpretation over the others. That is patently false. All interpretations of quantum mechanics give a perfectly coherent description of the decoherence process, that paper on decoherence does not in the least adjudicate between interpretations of quantum mechanics. If it did, you would know about it. Few people who understand quantum mechanics are surprised about the findings of that paper or the existence of the decoherence phenomenon, yet they can still enter into a lively debate about the pros and cons of the various interpretations. This very forum is an excellent example.

You can try to get around this by saying, "But those experiments are all on small scale! This doesn't prove that the same sort of thing happens on the scale of humans!"

No, I wouldn't find that argument very convincing. I would simply point out that all the interpretations have no difficulty accomodating decoherence. What differs is how they interpret what decoherence represents.

The default claim given the evidence, then, clearly should be the many worlds of quantum mechanics.

Certainly not. Start a thread on here and make that claim, if you want to see the fur fly.

Similar arguments about the existence of other regions of the universe with different low-energy physical laws can be made, though the evidence there is a bit more flimsy, because our state of knowledge of high-energy physics isn't all that great.

("little bit more flimsy"? You must be kidding.)

But if we were to accept that the laws of high-energy physics unambiguously allow for the existence of other regions of the universe with different low-energy physics, then that would be unambiguous evidence for the existence of other such regions.

No, again. Your statement is a highly rationalistic version of what science is, which is common among many-worlds enthusiasts, I am not surprised at all. But in fact, there is no credible reason to expect that just because some "law" (which is actually an aspect of a model) "allows for the existence" of something, that this constitutes evidence for the existence of that thing. Evidence of existence must actually be much more direct and empirical, to satisfy the mainstream (which tends to be much more empirical than rationalistic, they want observational evidence of existence).

 

[Spinalcold]

I'm new so please forgive me, but shouldn't we be fostering Shaz's excitement? This is a high school student interested in cosmology and asking for a few ideas as guidance. While I understand the idea that the multiverse may be impossible to prove, that's not the point. This is about 'teach a man to fish', give them some bait and let them explore on their own; this isn't a thesis. It is meant to help them look for information, analyze it, compile it and construct a paper on it.

Heck, if they want the daunting task of multiverse theory, let them have it, it may spawn a future science career by exposing them to more information than they normally would seek out. I did that in elementary school while doing a single page essay on black holes that were theoretical at the time...it was FUN.

Shaz, if you are still interested in this topic, (and full disclosure I'm the furthest thing from an expert here) I would recommend finding the topics that are attempting to look for evidence of their theory. And there are a few out there, any evidence they find won't prove a multiverse, but it will support their idea. I'm sorry, I can't give you any links, but there are some theorists that are looking for imprints in the cosmic microwave background, others looking for some aberration in gravity. One that comes to mind is Dark Flow (which proposes a neighbor universe is pulling some galaxies to us, which I doubt is real but you can write on the evidence for and against it).

And I would finish with the idea of saying the holes with these theories, do a full analysis, what they hope to prove and the questions they'll still have to answer.

Sorry if I stepped on any toes, I just wanted to make sure a seemingly excited person didn't get discouraged.

 

[Ken G]

I'm new so please forgive me, but shouldn't we be fostering Shaz's excitement? This is a high school student interested in cosmology and asking for a few ideas as guidance.

If you have a student who wants to do a project, let's say a thesis project for their PhD just as an example, would it not be your duty as an advisor to try and guide them toward something that would actually make a good project? Enthusiasm is wonderful, and I'm very glad Shaz is willing to bite off such a profound and difficult subject as the multiverse, but in my opinion, it's just not a good project. It is not conducive to getting anything concrete or useful out of, but then this is also my opinion of the multiverse idea itself. I may be wrong, perhaps multiverse thinking isn't just a form of rationalization with no demonstrable scientific basis, and maybe Shaz could do a really interesting project around it. That's their decision. But it's not true that the only thing that counts is enthusiasm-- there really is such a thing as a good project for a high school student to embrace, and a dubious one, and we can help navigate those waters, though we only have our opinions.

Heck, if they want the daunting task of multiverse theory, let them have it, it may spawn a future science career by exposing them to more information than they normally would seek out. I did that in elementary school while doing a single page essay on black holes that were theoretical at the time...it was FUN.

I would agree with you had Shaz not clearly stated that this is not supposed to just be a descriptive essay. He/she is supposed to answer a science question. That's exactly what is not going to be easy here, because the science question is, is this science? Not a good place to start! It would be fine for a research paper that quotes various people's ideas about the multiverse, and critiques of those ideas, but that does not seem to be what this project is supposed to be. But in point of fact, I'm not really all that clear on what the project is supposed to be, and I think your views are very good to enter into the equation.

 

[Spinalcold]

If you have a student who wants to do a project, let's say a thesis project for their PhD just as an example, would it not be your duty as an advisor to try and guide them toward something that would actually make a good project?

But Shaz is not wanting to do a PHD thesis. There is a HUGE difference between that and a high school report (the goal is completely different). I feel enthusiasm is extremely important in high school, and complex problems can sometimes foster that. Otherwise, we'd have very few scientists.

As for your later point on multiverse not being a scientific theory. Analyze it and discover whether it's a scientific theory. Part of the scientific method is looking a theories, seeing which make predictions and testing them. So in a high school essay, you can simply explore the possibilities. I'm not saying it's an easy topic to cover, just that if someone is excited about this field, let them explore it, who know's what can come of that. (eg, Stephen Hawking)

 

[Ken G]

But Shaz is not wanting to do a PHD thesis. There is a HUGE difference between that and a high school report (the goal is completely different). I feel enthusiasm is extremely important in high school, and complex problems can sometimes foster that.

Enthusiasm is just as important at all levels. So is having an appropriate topic!

As for your later point on multiverse not being a scientific theory. Analyze it and discover whether it's a scientific theory.

Yes, but you have to ask yourself: is a high school student going to be able to tell what is science? Is their audience going to appreciate those nuances? Here's what I predict if that is the topic chosen: the result is not a careful investigation of the nuances of what is science or isn't, but rather a "gee-whiz" investigation into how bizarre and unsubstantiatable are the kinds of concepts that scientists can sometimes take seriously. That can sometimes stimulate interest in science, but it also stimulates interest in pseudoscience. For an example of what I mean, just mention the movie "what the bleep do we know anyway" to anyone on this forum!

But yes, these are just factors for Shaz to weigh. If he/she decides to go ahead with it, godspeed, and good luck!

 

[marcus]

I am new to this, but in desperate need of help. I'm doing the IB and in our final two years of school we are required to write an essay (extended essay) on one of our chosen subjects. I chose to write an essay on physics and my topic is parallel universes. However, I am really stuck as the physics is beyond my level of understanding. I need some ideas that I could write a 4000 word essay about. (The essay would be mainly research based) Thank you

The website has a lot of information about the multiverse. I am also familiar with the various levels of universes. However, the problem presists that I cannot formulate a research question in this field. e.g. How does the density of liquid affect the waves created. I need a question realted to multiverse in that sense. It cannot be a descriptive essay, to some extent it needs to answer a question.

It sounds to me like the International Baccalaureate has some intellectual standards. You need to formulate some objective scientific question and do research, assemble evidence.

Because Multiversery is to large extent an amorphous batch of speculation and philosophizing, it is not, I think, a very rich place to look for objective answerable questions.
Shaz wants an answerable question, and originally asked for that.

Whipping up "enthusiasm for Science" is surely not the primary goal. And it can backfire if the young people realize they've been sold a bunch of hype.

I don't know if Shaz is still around. May no longer be checking this thread. If you are still around then please make a noise to let us know! We might be able to come up with some ideas for a research question, if not in Multiverseland at least in the general area of cosmology.

 

[Ken G]

Well put. I think I see where Spinalcold is coming from, that we should not douse the creative fires of this young investigator, but I agree with you that our primary mission should be to afford the good guidance that Shaz has apparently come on here to receive (and will hopefully return to the thread to tell us what reactions we are producing).

 

[skydivephil]

I've been studying astronomy at University College London and did my first year dissertation on inflation. Inflation has been argued by its main proponents and detractors alike to lead to a mulitverse, although there are others that argue that it need to do so.
Doing a project like this would enable you to write about the multiverse whilst keeping it grounded in something more mainstream.
I focused on how inflation has been tested so far and what hurdles it has still to jump. I think I had about 2 or 3 pages out of 40 discussing the eternal inflaiton/multiverse idea.
I got no criticism for mentioning the possibility of a multiverse and I see nothing wrong with this as long as you make it clear that is not a fact but a possible prediciton of a theory that whilst may be in good shape is certianly not a fact.
For further reading I suggest "Endless Universe" by Paul Steindhart and NeiL Turok, this is not too technical and explains many of the ideas very well. Be aware they are big time detractors of the mutliverse and inflation with their own speculative model to push. But often its good to listen to the critics and they explain the phsycis very well in my opinion. If you want the other side of the coin, read "Many Worlds in one " by Alex Vilnkin or "From Eternity to Here" by Sean Caroll.

 

[marcus]

... enable you to write about the multiverse whilst keeping it grounded in something more mainstream.
I focused on how inflation has been tested so far and what hurdles it has still to jump. I think I had about 2 or 3 pages out of 40 discussing the eternal inflaiton/multiverse idea.
...

That sounds like very sensible advice.

"Eternal" inflation is a specific kind of inflation scenario that envisages many disconnected blobs of slowed-down expansion scattered in an immense field that is still mostly expanding too rapidly for habitable structure to condense. According to that speculative scenario, we live in one of the slowed-down regions.

Merely assuming inflation does not force one to adopt the "eternal" idea. There are more modest limited versions of inflation. Those less grandiose elaborate visions may be closer to being testable.

So Skydive's example suggests a way out: write on inflation. What evidence in support? What problems? Does it require "fine-tuning" (improbably careful adjustment of parameters) to get sufficient inflation which then naturally stops when there has been enough?

And in his case, out of 40 pages about inflation, he had occasion to devote 2 or 3 to the vision of "eternal" inflation and the multiple blobs picture of universe which it suggests.

Can anyone suggest a specific research question about inflation, that a high school student could pursue?

The key thing with this International Baccalaureate thesis seems to be that you need a specific question. Some definite thing you can ask and rummage around and get evidence for/against this or that answer. You have to be able to dig up at least a partial answer to your question, in the literature. I think that's what Shaz was telling us.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned the idea of writing about Dark Matter. That has a Multiverse angle or side-issue to it as well---so it could serve similarly to what Skydive says about inflation.

In one inflation scenario there is just one universe, ours, but it is divided into large tracts with different DM density. In our region there is 5 or 6 times more DM than there is ordinary. In some other regions there could be more DM (relative to ordinary matter) and in other there could be less.

So in 2 or 3 pages of a 40 page essay about DM one could bring in this kinda-sorta Multivish idea. The other patches are not totally different from ours, they are mostly the same fields, particles, laws. But they might still look rather different and offer different degrees of habiitability from our patch.

 

[Chalnoth]

Can anyone suggest a specific research question about inflation, that a high school student could pursue?

1. Could provide an overview of the current evidence that constrains inflation, which is primarily from WMAP, but also from a few other experiments. The "cosmological interpretation" papers that the WMAP team releases every couple of years are about the best out there for this purpose, at least to start.
2. Provide an overview of the future evidence that might be used to constrain inflation, and how it can do that. Things like searches for non-Gaussianity or B-mode polarization might be informative here.

It's not really possible for a high-school student to do their own research directly here, of course, but it can certainly be done in a sort of review or argumentative essay format.

 

[Ken G]

I'm not sure shaz.662 is still coming around to see this, but I would certainly agree that a project more directly focused on more mainstream cosmology, with a kind of sidelight on the multiverse, would be far preferable to an entire science question based on the multiverse. Unless one wants to "teach the controversy," it hardly seems like a good idea to choose as one's science question something that we seem a long way off from being able to answer in any kind of consensus way. Dark matter is much more of a consensus, dark energy also (though maybe a bit less so), and inflation is third on that scale but still pretty solidly in the consensus. So any project in those arenas would seem more appropriate, though it's still going to have the flavor "wouldn't it be nice to come back in a century and see how this all came out" rather than "isn't it great how we were able to ask this science question, and find its answer."

 

[Haelfix]

Actually the mathematics of multiverse physics shouldn't be impossible for a high school student. There is a lot of simple Bayesian analysis and probability work that is done, which is quite intuitive. Some knowledge of Penrose diagrams would certainly be needed as well.

Whereas calculations with dark matter are considerably more involved, grueling and likely quite out of reach mathematically.

 

[Vorde]

Actually the mathematics of multiverse physics shouldn't be impossible for a high school student. There is a lot of simple Bayesian analysis and probability work that is done, which is quite intuitive. Some knowledge of Penrose diagrams would certainly be needed as well.

Whereas calculations with dark matter are considerably more involved, grueling and likely quite out of reach mathematically.

Knowing what I know about the IB, I'd assume math is of less importance in this paper than research and data gathering.

 

[marcus]

Knowing what I know about the IB, I'd assume math is of less importance in this paper than research and data gathering.

Vorde, thanks for stressing that. Earlier in the thread I suggested an alternative topic having to do with Dark Matter largely because the evidence is visual and can be discussed in ordinary language. One can present DM density maps, drawn as contour overlay on photographs of galaxy clusters. One also has the visual results of computer simuations of DM gathering to form the basic framework for ordinary matter to condense on in the early universe.

... How about an essay titled "Dark Matter"

or "Dark Matter and Structure Formation"

The essay is in two parts A and B

Part A discusses the EVIDENCE for DM, primarily the Bullet Cluster, which is highly visual evidence, and goes over the other types of evidence lightly, verbally.

Part B discusses the computer simulations that visually present how the largescale STRUCTURE or patterns of strands and clusters and voids that we SEE can have come about by gradual gravity pulling things together HELPED by Dark Matter. Indeed since there is so much more DM, 5 or 6 times more than ordinary type, it seems to have coalesced to form the basic cobwebby skeleton that ordinary matter then condensed on. That's how the computer simulations suggest it happened.

That again is something that can be presented visually and verbally (instead of needing math equations) because there are a lot of computer animations and still shots available if you dig around for them. Like from that website at the University of Chicago. I forget the guy's name but he is in the credits of George Smoot's TED talk.
...

 

[Ken G]

Yes, I think if we have a high-school student explaining Penrose diagrams, the whole presentation is going to be at the purely "gee whiz" level, like "see what a clever high-school student I am, I can use 'conformal mapping' in a sentence, even though I have no understanding of the idea." At least most high-school students can use "dark matter" in a sentence, and have a reasonable idea what it means.

 

[Haelfix]

Knowing what I know about the IB, I'd assume math is of less importance in this paper than research and data gathering.

Yea but you need to understand the research and data, which is really not a simple matter with dark matter. I doubt that the IB will accept quality that is isomorphic to pulling out a Wikipedia page, and a copied picture of numerical results which says 'see this is dark matter'.

Observationally you need to understand Lyman alpha forests, baryon accoustic models of the CMB and details of the ISM and IGM that are rather heavy duty. Even picking out features of galactic rotation curves is a little bit tricky past the wikipedia level knowledge. On the theoretical side, you need to understand how to calculate relic abundances, have a good grasp of galaxy formation/mergers and cosmological particle freeze out calculations.

An upper level undergraduate would struggle with this, and while its possible that high school student could do it, its stacking the chips.

Meanwhile for instance (and this just off the top of my head), a paper appeared on hep-th today: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.1081. I think with a little bit of supervision, that a high school student would be able to understand something like that. Indeed they might be able to solve a simple toy model that might be analogous to a full fledged calculation of the real thing..

It would require supervision, but I suspect it might be possible to enlist a professor to aid with this if the school has the clout.

 

[Vorde]

Quickly glancing over the math, I agree its tackleable by a high school student, especially with the professors help, but my point was more that assuming the IB exam is similar to the Thesis I do at my school (which I know it is to a considerable extent), the teachers are looking for the literary research not the mathematical skills.

All I'm saying is that it really doesn't matter about the mathematics, I could have written my thesis on QED and escaped with only a few lines of math, if any at all. I think the OP should be more concerned with how easy it would be to formulate a researchable question than with the background math that he/she will be reporting on.

 

[Ken G]

I guess the question then is, what is the researchable question in regard to eternal inflation? We've heard some people point out the importance of not squelching the enthusiasm of the student who is interested in the multiverse, and we've seen evidence that mathematical models might not be deal breakers, but the overarching issue seems to be the whole context of eternal inflation and multiverses. How much overhead has to go into setting up the topic before one really comes to a specific research question? Perhaps if such a question could be suggested, it would be clearer how this might actually make a good topic, because I'm still dubious in the absence of such an example.

 

[shaz.662]

Thank you everyone who contributed, though I should confess some of it was over my head, but it is a bit late to choose a different topic as suggested, what I now plan to do is look at atleast 5 different experiments that claim to provide results that are not 'classical physics'. I will then try and find some similarities in the results gathered by scholars and try and find a pattern (like a meta analysis). I will then see which theory of multiverse relates to my pattern, and that will be my essay. I would really appreciate if people could just also send me some experiments they think might be related.

 

[skydivephil]

First one should note that we don't have any experimental evidence for the multiverse. It may or may not exist.
Have you read Brian Green's book "The Hidden Reality"? This is an easy book for the layman and will give you some of the ideas that have been put forward to give the idea a plausible basis. This should be your starting point.

In cosmology the idea of eternal inflation is probably the most relevant case. This is discussed in Green's book.

There are three potential experimental signals I can think of, none of them have convinced the astronomical community and you will need to make that clear.

1 Dark Flow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_flow . In the wiki article you will see a link to Ned Wrights criticism. is there really any effect happening at all? you can discuss the back and forth in more detail the wiki page has, the links are all there.

2. Bubble collisions : here is lecture on the topic and an article here:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/12/22/observing-the-multiverse-guest-post/
So far no confirmatin of bubble collisions has been detected, some hope Planck will show something, we'll see.

3 Varying Alpha http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100909004112.htm
You might be able to tie this to the idea of what Green calls "the Quilted mulitverse" maybe that's a stretch I'm not sure. Again though remember the claimed effect is very small, how likely is it that its a statistical fluke?

i think your best bet is to lay out why some believe there may be a mulitverse and what prospects there are for finding some evidence. Discuss the back and forth in the literature but you do not need to conclude anything your self.