I've been looking for somewhere to post this:
The existing edifice of physics [...] is clearly in need of renovation. We have been waiting for years for cracks to appear that might tell us how to go about it [...] In the past few weeks, however, promising cracks have opened up [...] The widest crack of all concerns a theory once considered outlandish but now reluctantly accepted as the orthodoxy. Almost everything in modern physics, from standard cosmology and string theory, points to the existence of multiple universes - maybe 10^500 of them, maybe an infinite number.
If our universe is just one of many, that solves the "fine-tuning" problem at a stroke: we find ourselves in a universe whose laws are compatible with life because it couldn't be any other way. And that would just be the start of a multiverse-fuelled knowledge revolution.
Conclusive evidence may be close at hand. Theorists predict that our universe might once have collided with others. These collisions could have left dents in the cosmic microwave background, the universe's first light, which the European Space Agency's Planck satellite is mapping with exquisite precision. The results are eagerly awaited [...]
New Scientist, Editorial 'A New Cosmology Beckons', 26th Nov 2011
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