The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes

Halpern (Flashes of Creation), a physics professor at Saint Joseph’s University, delves into the multiverse in this thought-provoking if challenging offering. He opens with a superb introduction to the concept of the multiverse, explaining that it stems from physicist Hugh Everett’s hypothesis that measuring quantum states “splits” reality, with every possible outcome constituting its own world. The idea is not without its critics, Halpern notes, observing that because there’s no agreed upon method for detecting or measuring alternate universes’ existence, some scientists decry the multiverse as unfalsifiable. The bulk of the book consists of a broad scientific and philosophical history of the ideas underlying the multiverse, covering Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr’s disagreements over observers’ role in quantum mechanics and physicist Paul Steinhardt’s 1980s work suggesting the early cosmos might have been “a bubbling froth of multiple expanding universes.”Halpern sometimes loses focus, however, as when he takes a lengthy detour examining Friedrich Nietzsche’s belief in the “endless repetition of events throughout the eons.” Though Halpern does his best to make the science accessible (he likens Everett’s understanding of the multiverse to “an ever-flowing river with many persistent branches”), his valiant efforts come up short when faced with the complexity of string theory and a proposed “eleven-dimensional brane world.” Still, the curious will find much to ponder. Photos. (Jan.)