Why is the universe the way it is? Scientists have explored many ways to explain the cosmos, leading to some crazy-sounding ideas
Why is the universe the way it is? Over the years, scientists have explored many ideas to explain our cosmos and its future. Here are some of the strangest ideas, from a braneworld scenario that involves the universe floating in a higher dimensional space, to the "Big Splat" that describes such a brane colliding with another to form an entirely new universe.
1. Braneworld
An aspect of the universe we take for granted is that it's three dimensional — there are three perpendicular directions you can move in. Some theories, however, suggest another spatial dimension — which we can't perceive directly — in another perpendicular direction. This higher dimensional space is referred to as "the bulk," while our universe is a three-dimensional membrane — or "brane" — floating inside the bulk.
As complicated as it sounds, the braneworld picture solves several problems in physics. For example, theoretical physicists Lisa Randall, of Harvard University, and Raman Sundrum, of the University of Maryland, proposed a version of the braneworld that explains an asymmetry in subatomic forces by suggesting the existence of other branes parallel to our own. But it's not enough for a theory to explain facts we already know — it has to make new predictions that can be tested experimentally. In the case of the Randall-Sundrum model, such tests could involve measuring gravitational waves emitted by black holes linking one brane to another.
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