The Multiverse: One Universe or Many?

Speaker: Prof. Daniel Baumann, DAMTP, University of Cambridge
Series: Cambridge University Astronomical Society (CUAS)

Cosmologists have developed a remarkably successful account of the history of our Universe, from quantum fluctuations in its earliest moments to the vast cosmic structures we observe today, 13.8 billion years later. In this talk, I will tell this extraordinary story and explore the puzzles that remain. Why is the Universe so big? And why does it have big objects in it? Attempts to answer these deceptively simple questions have led some cosmologists to entertain a radical possibility: our Universe may be just one of many, part of a much larger Multiverse. I will explore what motivates this idea, whether it can be tested, and what it might mean for the science of cosmology.