Multiverse
A multiverse is the theory of a conjectured set of multiple possible universes, including ours, which make up reality. These universes are sometimes called parallel universes. A number of different versions have been considered.
The word “multiverse” was created in 1895 by psychologist William James as a philosophical concept.
The cosmological multiverse
The cosmological multiverse tries to explain why the universe we can see sometimes called our universe is one that life can exist in. Even small changes to the way physics works would make life impossible. In a multiverse a large number of universes are randomly created and some happen to favour life emerging there. Many inhospitable universes would also have been created, but there would be no life there to observe their existence.
The quantum multiverse
The quantum multiverse is another version in which our universe splits into alternative futures with every quantum event. This is called Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Multiverse” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact.
Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.
Worksheets, answer keys and printable layouts elsewhere on K5Print are our own work and are not covered by this licence.