What, then, are time and space? Space and time are the most fundamental features of our universe, and yet they are also the most puzzling. Are there alternative parallel worlds and universes with their own Earth's with alternate histories? Might time travel be possible? Can you bend space and similarly bend time also, so that you could move faster than light and travel backward in time to exist in two places at once? Could time go backwards? Or are time and space an illusion, essentially just a human invention?
Wikipedia defines time as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future."1 Our human ancestors, (and some other cultures today) viewed time as cyclical, circadian, seasonal and rhythmic, matching with the Circle of Life. Physicists have many different ways of conceptualizing time: Albert Einstein showed that time is an illusion; it is relative and can vary for different observers depending on the particular observer's speed through space.
Chronometry, or the measurement of time, takes two forms: the calendar for periods of over 24 hours and the clock for periods of up to 24 hours. In 1752, 11 days went missing and as a result, 3-13th September 1752 never existed. It would be great to have some amazing time travel story to explain this away. However, the mystery of the missing days was drearily due to Britain abandoning the Julian (Old Style) calendar in favour of the Gregorian (New Style), so 3 September instantly became 14 September. 2 An agreement on the nature of time became increasingly necessary with the launch of the industrial revolution; Greenwich Mean Time, created in 1847, was used by British railways, the British navy, and the British shipping industry. This was calibrated to the mean solar time, the hour angle of the mean Sun plus 12 hours, at Greenwich Royal Observatory.1
Is the universe we live in the only one out there with its unique 'rules' about Spacetime? Scientists can't be sure what the configuration of space-time is, but as there are a finite number of ways particles can be arranged in space and time, it is thought that it must start repeating at some point. The Many-Worlds Theory says that anything that could have ever happened and anything that will ever happen all separately and simultaneously exist in different parallel worlds and timelines and gives rise to the possibility of many more dimensions to our world than the three of space and one of time that we know. Quantum mechanics describes the world in terms of probabilities, rather than definite outcomes, with the mathematics suggesting that all possible outcomes of a situation could occur — in their own separate universes. 3
A parallel universe, also known by a bewildering array of other terms: alternate universe, alternate reality, alternate timeline, alternate dimension, dimensional plane, interpenetrating dimension, parallel dimension, parallel world, parallel reality, quantum universe or quantum reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The entirety of all theoretically potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often termed a “multiverse", with a hypothetical group of multiple universes comprising everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them.
The American theoretical physicist and string theorist Brian Greene discussed nine types of multiverses Quilted, Inflationary, Brane, Cyclic, Landscape, Quantum, Holographic, Simulated or Ultimate.4 He and Max Tegmark devised classification schemes for the various theoretical types of multiverses and universes that they might comprise which I will summarise thus: Level I: An extension of our universe, Level II: Universes with different physical constants, Level III: Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and Level IV: Ultimate ensemble. 5 A lot of scientists are generally sceptical but Professor Stephen Hawking was a proponent of the multiverse hypothesis and possible evidence has come to light in the last few years, suggesting this is in fact may be a reality.
In 2017, there was an article in the New York Post 6 stating that some scientists believed they may have discovered evidence of a parallel universe that crashed into our own in "a galactic impact mirroring a car crash". That impact was so incredible, according to this research, that it pushed energy out of a huge region of space, resulting in a Cold Spot. Since 2004, when it was first spotted by NASA, scientists have been baffled by the discovery of this unusually cold region of space, which is 1.8 billion light years across and colder than its surroundings. It was originally thought the region might have been colder because it had 10,000 fewer galaxies than other areas of the same size. However, researchers at Durham University now believe it could be the first evidence of a “multiverse.”
References
http://www.projectbritain.com/calendar/September/calendar.html
https://www.space.com/18811-multiple-universes-5-theories.html
https://nypost.com/2017/05/18/scientists-think-they-found-proof-of-a-parallel-universe/ (originally published by News.com.au)
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