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Are There Multiple Universes?

-- | March 8, 2015

Question: Hi! I am from Salt Lake City Utah. I’m in the sixth grade and in middle school. Middle school is really amazing and I love it. But what I love about it the most is my science teacher. His name is Mr. Krause and he is the best. he is smart funny and explains stuff in the best way! Right now we are almost done with astronomy. We started talking about the universe and I asked him this question and got a good answer but I thought I could ask you and get an even better answer? Here it is: Could we be looking at the size of the universe the wrong way? Could the universe just be one HUGE galaxy and there are multiple universes just like there are galaxies? Perhaps one day one universe will collide with another just like galaxies in our own universe.

Thanks for reading my comment! Astronomy has always interested me along with many other things about our world and its history like the past cultures. Thanks again and I hope you understand what I am trying to say. — Kailey

Answer: That is really great that you have such an amazing science teacher! You should be sure to tell him how much you enjoy his teaching. As for your question about how we view the universe, let me just say that any description of the structure of the universe has always to be based on measurements. In fact, this rule that any explanation of anything has to be based on fact applies to everything in science. Now, since we observe stars and galaxies in our single universe, and we believe we have a pretty good understanding of how they interact and evolve, we feel confident that our observations are described very well by a single universe. To turn that around, we can definitely say that we have no evidence for there being any additional universes other than our own. That said, it is still possible that there are multiple universes, the evidence for which we just have not found yet. This is a hypothetical scenario, though, that is not based on any measurements we have made.

I do hope that you continue to enjoy your science class Kailey and that Mr. Krause enjoys teaching science as much as you enjoy learning it.

Jeff Mangum

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