Stellar Horizons: Multiverse Theory

Margarita is a Student Ambassador in Greece, leading a series of articles about Aerospace Engineering as part of her leadership project.

(Emma’s story continued…)

Months passed, and Emma couldn’t remember much.

The café was like a distant memory hidden away in her mind; she could only remember one thing-the waiter. Not his appearance-no, that was long forgotten-only his voice.

It was summer, mid-July. She fell asleep four hours ago. Usually, she would dream of the same café and wake up seconds later, like she shouldn’t be there yet. But tonight she dreamed of the café again, this time, the waiter was there, and the galaxy was still outside.

“Welcome back!” he said, smiling from ear to ear.

She was puzzled; it wasn’t a dream, no, it felt real. She turned to look outside the window, then slowly turned to look back at the waiter and then back at the phenomenon.

“Is…that me?” She whispered; she could see herself in the same café, though she and the waiter looked a bit different. A pulsing “magic” circle engulfed the scene.

He nodded, “It’s you, you are right. Though in another universe.” He stated matter-of-factly.

“What? That’s impossible, no, I don’t believe you…there is no way,” she was panting now.

“Don’t be scared, Emma, it’s just theory for now.”

“You mean the multiverse theory? I-I heard that a few weeks ago,” she rubbed her head, “They said it was impossible!”

He shrugged his shoulder and started talking, “The multiverse, often referred to as the meta-universe or parallel universes, is a theoretical concept proposing that our observable universe is just one of the potentially infinite universes that coexist in reality.”

“Did you truly think that this is everything?” he gestured at the stars.

He walked closer to the window and pointed to similar pulsing “magic” circles all around the café.

“Some suggest that the universes are arranged like a patchwork quilt. Others propose bubble-like universes that can collide. One particularly intriguing notion and my favorite,” He added.

“Deposits that every decision made creates branching realities, leading to alternate versions of events and histories.”

He turned to look at Emma, “That means that if hypothetically the multiverse is real, and you in this universe don’t go out one day, in another universe that could result in something different, maybe a house would collapse, or a car crash wouldn’t happen.”

She gulped. “That’s scary”, she mumbled. “It is unfair, though, why should it matter that I, in this universe, do something so normal, such as drinking water, and in another, this act gets someone hurt!”

He crooked his head to the side slightly, “Don’t expect the universe to reveal all her secrets to you. I don’t know why that could happen if it’s even possible, maybe we will never know, maybe she will decide to tell us…or show us.”

He clapped his hands, and darkness spread. A whiteboard appeared in the middle of the room, just like last time.

“Four decades ago, the idea of the multiverse took root in cosmology. They tried to make sense of observations of how the universe appears very uniform on the largest scales that are accessible to our telescopes. Key word being ‘tried’,” he said ironically.

An image appeared on the whiteboard along with the text:

“The best explanation, along with this image,” he pointed to the whiteboard.

Before he could continue, Emma, without understanding how or why she started talking, explained.

“Inflation says that, instead of an expanding ball of matter, energy, space, and time that started with the Big Bang, the early universe exploded into being faster than the speed of light from a size smaller than that of a subatomic particle.”

“Like a vast sheet snapped tight. This flattened out the visible universe from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang so that everything looks relatively uniform in all directions.”

Emma didn’t know when she stood. She didn’t remember deciding to move. The whiteboard pulsed softly- not with light, but with something deeper. Recognition. The symbols appeared faintly at first. Curves. Integrals. Her heart began to race.

“I don’t…” she whispered.

And then, something snapped inside her and she understood. Not like memorizing facts. Not like studying. But like remembering something she had always known. Her hand moved before she could stop it.

“The idea of inflation in turn gave birth to that of the multiverse, that our universe is just one of many.”

“Based on assumptions about the inflationary universe. Instead of being a single spherically symmetric expanding balloon-like structure, our universe may look like a “multiverse”, a cosmic froth of many different exponentially large bubbles (“universes”) with different laws of physics operating in each one.”

The waiter smiled.

“You let the universe into you. You opened your mind to her, and she gifted you her secrets.”

“W-what? There is no way? Why me? What do I have that she likes?”

“I told you, Emma, don’t expect her to reveal all her secrets to anyone, not so fast.”

The café flickered, and Emma knew it was time to leave. Though at the last second, she turned to the waiter and said, “I am not leaving, not until she reveals herself to me. I am not leaving until the universe explains why she chose me!” 

The café stopped flickering, silence fell across the room, and a wind-like sound was heard. She looked outside the window. The stars outside began to distort. Not from a distance, but from something approaching. A massive black hole, immense and silent, devoured the light around it, pulling the cosmos into its shadow.

Emma’s breath caught. Time seemed to slow, making every heartbeat feel slower. She realized then that the multiverse wasn’t just theory- it was a symphony, and she was a note, vibrating somewhere between infinity and nothingness.

The café flickered, its walls dissolving into starlight. She could feel the pulse of every decision she had made, every choice she hadn’t, stretching across the vast quilt of existence. Somewhere, in another universe, another her was making the same choices- or different ones- and yet, they all resonated in the same eternal rhythm.

“You see, Emma, the universe chooses no favorites. She reveals herself only to those who listen, who dare to step into the spaces between words.”

Emma reached towards the window; she felt no fear, only awe.

“I will listen, I will follow.”

The black hole did not devour her; it beckoned. The stars themselves seemed to pulse with stories waiting to be told.

Emma understood: her journey had just begun.

This article was written with the assistance of GenAI tools.