Today’s New Reason To Believe

by Jeff Zweerink

Since May 2007, I have been regularly addressing the subject of multiverse models. To recap, I’d like to summarize the various previous topics covered on this subject. Additionally, I would like to know what multiverse questions and issues concern you.

The “Multiverse Musings” series began by defining some multiverse terminology, and then described how a spatially infinite (or even very large) Level I multiverse affects various design arguments. The next discussion outlined several philosophical objections to physical infinities.

After describing how scientists use the cosmic microwave background to measure cosmological parameters, the succeeding entries each highlighted a different bizarre question arising from multiverse models:

1. Do multiple copies of me making slightly different choices exist?
2. Do random processes spontaneously pop sentient beings briefly into existence?
3. Are we just part of a highly complex, but unreal, simulation?

Most recently, I discussed how multiverse models impact the most powerful, scientifically relevant argument for God’s existence: the cosmological argument.

The articles above provide an introductory overview to what I consider the most relevant issues regarding the multiverse. As I continue to fill in more details, I am interested to know about your multiverse questions and concerns. Please forward them to multiverse@reasons.org.

Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

In past Multiverse Musings TNRTBs, I have described not just one, but two bizarre implications of the multiverse. This TNRTB addresses a third.

Due to its box-office acclaim, most people are familiar with the Matrix trilogy. The series’ premise presents a scenario where the world experienced by human beings results from a vast computer simulation piped directly into each human’s brain. Neo, the unwitting yet key player in the fight against the Matrix, meets Morpheus, leader of a band of free human rebels, who presents Neo with a choice: escape to the gritty reality of the real world or remain in the blissful ignorance of the Matrix simulation.

Alternate universes such as those in The Matrix may be things of fiction, but if the multiverse exists and if sufficiently complex simulations exist, then a remarkable scenario ensues. Simulated universes with simulated beings vastly outnumber any sentient life in “real”, physical universes! Sir Martin Rees explains the consequences of the multiverse in this way:

“All the multiverse ideas lead to a remarkable synthesis between cosmology and physics….But they also lead to the extraordinary consequence that we may not be the deepest reality, we may be a simulation. The possibility that we are creations of some supreme or super-being, blurs the boundary between physics and idealist philosophy, between the natural and the supernatural, and between the relation of mind and multiverse and the possibility that we’re in the matrix rather than the physics itself.” (See Paul Davies, The Cosmic Jackpot, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston (2007): 179-90.)

However adequately multiverse theories address the fine-tuned appearance of our observable universe and the events that made advanced life possible, they still raise more complicated questions than they answer. To the previously highlighted bizarre questions (Do multiple copies of me making slightly different choices exist? Do random processes spontaneously pop sentient beings briefly into existence?), we must now ask: Are we just part of a highly complex, but unreal, simulation?

Interestingly, the picture painted by the Bible shares much with the idea that we are a “simulation.” For instance, one reason God created this universe is to provide an arena for the conquest of good over evil. Upon completing that conquest, God will replace this universe with a more permanent creation where humans will enjoy an intimate relationship with Him—which is the ultimate reality.

However, unlike simulations where everything ceases to exist, God will transport us into the new “simulation” where wonders beyond our imagination await. Furthermore, death, decay, and pain will no longer exist because the old “simulation” will have passed away.

by Hugh Ross

Not until Albert Einstein produced his theory of general relativity in 1916 did scientists even consider the possibility of continual cosmic expansion. Yet, six Bible authors described this expansion in great detail over two thousand years ago.¹ For centuries, the Bible stood alone as the only text making such claims about the universe. Consequently, any additional evidence in favor of continual expansion supports the reliability and predictive power of the Bible and of the Christian world view.

Increasingly accurate measures of the rate and constancy of cosmic expansion also put the dispute between old- and young-universe creationism to a more rigorous test.² One such breakthrough comes from a team of American and Canadian radio astronomers whose work buttresses the current method for measuring cosmic expansion.

Until just a few years ago, the only reliable method for determining the expansion rate of the universe relied on the “distance ladder” method. (Even today, this method is still considered one of the pillars for determining the expansion history of the universe because it offers insights into the expansion rate at multiple cosmic epochs.)

Using direct distance measurements to nearby objects, astronomers calibrate the indirect distance methods and then use the indirect methods to determine the distance to more-distant objects. Indirect methods make certain assumptions about the properties of the observed objects. The direct methods are assumption free.

Direct distance measurements rely upon the plane geometry theorems students learn in high school. Traditionally, the diameter of Earth’s orbit becomes the base of the triangle for these calculations. But because that base of 186 million miles is comparatively small, the nearly perpendicular side angles and extremely narrow vertex angle of the triangle for stars located more than a thousand light-years away seriously limit the precision of such measurements.

In the July 2, 2007 edition of Today’s New Reason To Believe I reported on recent measurements made on microwave maser sources orbiting around the super-giant black hole residing in the center of the galaxy NGC 4258.The spectra of the maser sources yielded the orbital velocities of the sources about the black holes. Newton’s laws of motion translated those velocities into measured diameters for the orbits. A different radio astronomy research team then used electronically linked radio telescopes all over the world to create an instrument with an angular resolving power a thousand times better than the biggest ground-based optical telescope and a hundred times superior to the Hubble Space Telescope. With accurate measures of the angles subtended by the orbits combined with precise measures of the diameters of the orbits in kilometers, the team used geometry theorems to calculate the distance to NGC 4258.³ This technique pushed accurate direct distance measurements out to 25 million light-years and it confirmed that the indirect distance measuring methods were reliable.

Now, radio astronomers have developed another method, independent of the one used on NGC 4258, to determine a direct distance measurement to a galaxy millions of light-years away. In 1993, astronomers observed the beginning of a supernova eruption in the spiral galaxy, M81. Since then, astronomers have measured the growth of an expanding shock front emanating from the supernova. By studying spectral measurements of the light at the leading edges of the shock front, astronomers deduced its rate of growth in kilometers per second. This information led to the discovery of the width in kilometers of the shock front at various epochs in its expansion. Using a global network of radio telescopes, the American-Canadian radio astronomy team provided precise measurements of the angles subtended by the shock front at those same epochs.⁴ As with the maser sources in NGC 4258, high school geometry theorems gave the team an accurate direct distance measurement to M81.

The American-Canadian team determined the distance to M81 to be 12.9 million light-years ± 0.9 million light-years. Though slightly higher than the best indirect distance determination, this distance measure was consistent given the measuring errors. Therefore, astronomers now possess two independent direct distance determination methods on two different galaxies that confirm the reliability of the indirect methods. Such confirmations allow us to enjoy a more certain picture of the universe’s expansion history and a more accurate calculation of the time back to the cosmic creation event—the event of which Moses wrote in Genesis 1:1.

1. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, third edition (Colorado Springs, NavPress, 2001): 23-29.
2. Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).
3. A. L. Argon, et al., “Toward a New Geometric Distance to the Active Galaxy NGC 4258. I. VLBI Monitoring of Water Maser Emission,” Astrophysical Journal 659 (April 20, 2007): 1040-1062.
4. N. Bartel, et al, “SN 1993J VLBI. IV. A Geometric Distance to M81 with the Expanding Shock Front Method,” Astrophysical Journal 668 (October 20, 2007): 924-940.