By examining light from the early universe, Thomas Buchert’s team at the University of Lyon concluded that our universe could be interconnected many times over, meaning that space is confined to itself in all three dimensions – like a three-dimensional cake (a donut shaped like a tire). Does this concept make sense?
For decades, astronomers have debated the nature of the universe—whether it was “flat” (meaning that imaginary parallel lines would always remain parallel), “closed” (parallel lines would eventually intersect), or “open” (these lines would intersect each other). some). divide). This geometry of the universe dictates its destiny. The flat and open universes will expand to infinity, while the closed universe will eventually collapse in on itself.
Repeated observations, especially the microwave background radiation (CMB), indicated that we live in a flat universe. Parallel lines remain parallel and our universe will continue to expand. But shape is more than just geometry. There is also topology, which is how shapes can change while maintaining the same geometric rules.
While our measurements of the contents and shape of the universe tell us about its geometry – it is flat – they do not tell us about the topology. They do not tell us whether our universe is interconnected multiple times, which means that one or more dimensions of the universe are related to each other.
Whereas a perfectly flat universe would extend to infinity, a flat universe with a multilink topology would be of finite size. If we can somehow determine if one or more dimensions are folded over each other, we will know that the universe is finite in that dimension. We can then use these observations to measure the overall size of the universe.
Astrophysicists have studied the microwave background (CMB) radiation. When this radiation was released, our universe was a million times smaller than it is now, so if our universe was indeed a multiverse, it would most likely wrap around the observed universe limits.
Currently, due to the expansion of the universe, it is likely that the deflection occurs on a scale beyond the limits that can be observed, so it will be difficult to detect the deflection. The CMB observations give us the best chance of seeing the hallmarks of a multi-connected world.
The research team specifically looked at disturbances in the temperature of the CMB. If one or more dimensions in our universe are interconnected, the disturbances cannot be greater than the distance around these rings. They just won’t fit in.
– In infinite space, there are disturbances in the temperature of the CMB radiation at all levels. However, if space is finite, it lacks those wavelengths larger than the volume of space, Bochert said.
In other words, there would be a greater amount of perturbation that would reveal the topology of the universe.
CMB maps made by satellites like NASA’s WMAP and ESA’s Planck have already noticed an interesting amount of missing large-scale disturbances. Bouchert and colleagues tested whether these missing perturbations could be the result of a multilink universe. Scientists have run many computer simulations of what the CMB radiation would look like if the universe were trigonal, which is the mathematical name for a giant three-dimensional donut.
The team found that a multi-threaded universe about 3-4 times the size of our observed bubble is best suited to the CMB data. The results are still preliminary, but there are many indications that we can all live in a giant doughnut.
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