The Illusion of Time and the Multiverse

Image © Tiffany. Image Source: PBS.

PBS has a new 4-part series entitled The Fabric of the Cosmos on this month every Wednesday night. You can watch it in North America at 9:00 PM ET/PT on PBS (check local listings). Tonight's episode is called, "The Illusion of Time."

I09 reported on the series (the premiere was last week) and how popular Columbia prof and physicist Brian Greene is explaining something dear to the hearts of comic book editors everywhere: the existence of the multiverse and multiple copies of ourselves, inhabiting multi-realities. Is time the barrier between these dimensions?

Over the next month, NOVA is going to confirm what most sci-fi enthusiasts already suspect-that everything we've been taught about space and time just might be total B.S. The past is not just a series of faded events, the future isn't yet defined, and despite what science prudes say, we probably aren't alone.

The Fabric of The Cosmos, the four-part follow up to acclaimed physicist Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, takes an intensely in-depth look at all we think we know-and then turns it upside down. So in the weeks leading to the November 2 series premiere on PBS, we'll be giving you a brief primer on what to expect from each brilliant episode. So far we've explored space, time, and a little concept known as quantum mechanics. Today, we take one step farther into the unknown, in order to understand the theory of the multiverse.

Just when you were positive that you were indeed a unique snowflake, "Universe or Multiverse?"—the final installment of The Fabric of The Cosmos—melts all those notions away. Brian Greene ventures to explain the hard-to-swallow, yet scientifically plausible theory of alternate realities. Imagine a world, eerily similar to our own, populated with familiar faces—namely, yours. Some physicists believe that it's entirely possible that somewhere out there, in the infinite abyss, we each have a doppelganger. Explore each of these Bizarro worlds with Brian Greene, and learn about the concrete science that continues to awe even the hardest of skeptics.

Check it out if you can! See below the jump for the preview.

Addendum: To watch this episode, go here on Youtube. (Dec. 3, 2011)

Video Source: Youtube.