Scientific American And The Multiverse.

Time for more multiverse propaganda. :)

A recent article by the Scientific American got a lot right.  First, as discussed before, the multiverse is a natural prediction of modern cosmology theory:

Amazingly, the prevailing theory in modern cosmology, which emerged in the 1980s, suggests that such “parallel universes” may really exist—in fact, that a multitude of universes would incessantly pop out of a primordial vacuum the way ours did in the big bang. Our universe would be but one of many pocket universes within a wider expanse called the multiverse. In the overwhelming majority of those universes, the laws of physics might not allow the formation of matter as we know it or of galaxies, stars, planets and life. But given the sheer number of possibilities, nature would have had a good chance to get the “right” set of laws at least once.

The second thing it got right, which we have not discussed much, is this:  There are so many types of universes that our universe could have been like, why is ours like the one it is?

The real challenge, then, may be to explain why we do not live in a [different] universe. Eventually only a deeper knowledge of how universes are born can answer such questions. In particular, we may discover physical principles of a more fundamental level that imply that nature prefers certain sets of laws over others.

Is there something causing our universe to be so special, or is it purely random luck?  These are serious questions that science has to address since the difference between "a cause" and "random luck" is a huge difference scientifically.