Recap

Cosmology & Quantum Theory

Author and consultant to New Scientist magazine, Marcus Chown spoke about cosmology, quantum theory and parallel universes. Quantum theory, which is the study of how very small objects behave, has yielded some intriguing data. For instance, he noted, that an atom can be in two places at once-- the equivalent of a person being in New York and San Francisco at the same time. He also shared that because 99.999% of atoms are actually empty space, you could fit the entire human race into the volume of a sugar cube.

There is still evidence of the "afterglow" of the Big Bang; if our eyes were sensitive to microwaves we'd see the whole night sky glowing, he noted. Interestingly, 98% of the universe is invisible--most of it is "dark matter" which can be surmised by the fact that it is pulling on the visible matter. In addition, Chown pointed out that in 1998 "dark energy" was deduced, and this mysterious property (it pushes mass away from it) accounts for 73% of the universe's weight.

Chown said he feels "incredibly privileged to be alive" right now because of the discoveries that are being made about the universe and its origins. Our universe may be a four-dimensional brane floating in a ten-dimensional universe, and the Big Bang could have occurred when two branes collided, he offered.

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