Marvel movie fans will recognize the reference implied by the title of this article. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is a recent Marvel movie. In this movie Dr. Strange, with the help of a woman who can travel between universes, go to different universes searching for a book of magic that can destroy the demon being used by a witch to create her perfect world. A mix of supposed science, the demonic and witchcraft.
In 1954 Hugh Everett was a grad student at Princeton University. He was drinking with his friends and proposed the concept of ‘many worlds’, later called the ‘multiverse’. A theory that has no evidence of any sort yet is very popular today. A theory that, by nature, cannot have evidence as it is beyond our universe, which we barely understand. It is a theory roughly based on quantum mechanics, an accepted scientific field of study, that explains how extremely small things interact. But nothing in quantum mechanics provides evidence of a multiverse.
A primary reason the multiverse concept is somewhat accepted is that it allows our ‘perfectly tuned for life’ universe to exist without a creator. Many do not believe in a creator, God, so they like this alternative. If there is an unlimited number of universes in existence, the multiverse, then at least one of them, ours, must have turned out, randomly, just right for life to exist. This theory is necessary as scientist have long acknowledged our universe is so finely tuned, in every way, for life to exist that it could not have happened by chance. If the ‘big bang’ is not a viable solution to where we came from, then the multiverse is. But is it?
Scientists have calculated the odds of our universe coming into existence randomly is ’10 to the exponent 120′. Or one change in 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. That is based on what they know today, and that there are no duplicate universes created, which is highly unlikely. As they learn more the odds only get worse!
Image credit: Daniel de Bruin.
This machine has 100 gears. Each gear has a 10:1 ratio, meaning each gear ticks (moved) ten positions for the next gear to tick one. In mathematics, to turn the 100th gear would take ’10 to the exponent 100′ ticks of the first gear. That is 10 followed by 100 zero’s. It is called a ‘google’. An extremely large number. The odds of evolution are far, far smaller than even this number (one change in a google).
There is an infinitely small random chance of the universe coming into existence versus an infinitely large number of universes in the multiverse. What is ‘infinitely small X infinitely large’? No one knows.
Scientists have long accepted our universe had a beginning. By extension then, the multiverse must also have had a beginning. What caused the multiverse? No viable answers exist so this question is ignored in the same way it was for the Big Bang theory. NOTE – some say a ‘quantum fluctuation’ was the initial cause, but then what caused that fluctuation and what is that quantum?
The obvious alternative is that our universe was created by a creator, by God. The Bible affirms it as it starts with the statement “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But why believe this theory over the multiverse?
Evidence. Nobel prize winning scientist Charles Townes said “Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seem to be quite real.” Likewise, famous physicist Paul Davies said “Everyone agrees that the universe looks as if it was designed for life.” If it looks designed it is logical to believe it is designed.
No scientists have any explanation for where the laws of physics such as gravity, nuclear forces, electrical forces, mass of subatomic particles and so much more, come from. For example, we know gravity exists, we can measure it, but we do not know why it exists, where it came from. We do not know why the gravitational constant ‘G’ has the value it does. It is “madness”, referring back to the movie.
Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has said “Universes beside our own are logically equivalent to gods. They are unobservable by assumption, hence they can exist only in a religious sense. You can believe in them if you want to, but they are not part of science.”
Hopefully one day we will get over this “strange” behaviour of belief in something with no evidence and turn to something with overwhelming evidence. While Dr. Hossenfelder is right, God is unobservable, there is overwhelming evidence for His existence. God knew we would try to reject Him and thus said in His word, the Bible, “For his [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they [all of us] are without excuse.” Romans 1:20.
All nature points to an intelligence; to God. The multiverse has nothing pointing to it; it is not an alternative to a creator.
