One of the articles explains that the females have some mechanism for keeping the sperm alive, I imagine the sperm is able to replicate itself as long as the environment is friendly. I’m not sure how they would choose between sperm, that may just be a hypothesis. I unfortunately don’t have the time to read further right now
Well I wasn’t expecting to look this up today. But it looks like there’s actually plenty of evidence for bats holding onto sperm for months. I’m not sure about them selectively choosing which sperm to use.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10511888/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/female-sperm-storage
And it’s not just bats. Apparently some turtles can hold onto sperm for years.
I also like the idea that these “other universes” might be within the realm of our infinite universe, beyond the reach of our finite observable universe. And I agree that we’ve probably reached as far as our logic can take us :) thanks for taking the time and effort to think this through with me, it was very fun!
Okay, heads up that my husband and I are both sick right now and have a bit of brain fog, and he’s WFH while I have the day off so he can’t spare as much time to this. We see the logic in your argument and agree with your math. I’m trying to link this all back to the multiverse discussion so I can hopefully wrap my head around it.
Expanding on the idea that many universes were created in the Big Bang, I will pose a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to and will wrap up with a summary of possibilities.
Would the Big Bang create a finite or infinite number of universes? For there to be infinite universes, there would have had to be an infinite amount of mass and energy packed into a singular point before the Big Bang. Intuitively, and from my measly B.S. level of chemistry and physics classes, that feels wrong—but intuition, especially when it comes to infinities, is not worth much.
If there are an infinite number of universes, is this a countable or uncountable infinity (basically ℵ0 or ℵ1, I think)? Do we consider the number of all possible outcomes to be a countable or uncountable infinity?
Uncountable infinities are definitely larger than countable infinities. But are there different sizes of uncountable infinities? Your comment leads me to believe no, because we have no way of assigning a size to an uncountable number, but reading this article leads me to believe that there might be cardinalities beyond ℵ1. Your statements seem to agree with Woodin (and I think most of the math world at this point), while my idea of different sizes of infinities matches with Asperó and Schindler. If the top math minds of the world are this torn on the potential existence of different sizes of uncountable infinities, I can’t expect myself to understand it haha.
Summary of ideas:
My gut says that if we do somehow have multiverses then it must be a finite amount, and the possible number of outcomes is infinite (can’t decide if countable or uncountable)—therefore there can’t be a universe for every possible variation.
For there to be infinite universes that represent every possible permutation of events, I think we would be assuming that these are uncountable infinities, and that there is only one size of uncountable infinities (basically ℵ1 being the highest cardinality, I think).
If we say there are an infinite number of universes and an infinite number of possible outcomes, BUT there does not exist a universe that represents every possible outcome, this would rely 1 of 2 possibilities:
3a) the number of universes is a countable infinite while the number of possible outcomes is an uncountable infinite, or;
3b) that both the number of universes and the number of possible outcomes are both uncountable infinities, that the mathematical theory presented in the article above of different sizes of uncountable infinities (ℵ2 and beyond) is accurate, and therefore that the infinite number of possible outcomes is greater than the infinite number of universes.
I’ve tried writing out my thoughts several times and I keep erasing them, can’t keep track of how convoluted this is. I think I finally got it down though. Please tell me this isn’t complete nonsense lol, I need a nap
Wait, you lost me in the first part. For simplicity sake, let’s have two sets of numbers. Set A has the numbers 4, 5, and 6, a total of 3 whole numbers. Set B has the numbers 1 and 2, a total of 2 whole numbers. The number 4 from set A can be divided by 2, giving us the unique number 2 from set B. Set A and set B still have different amounts of numbers in them.
My husband is also chiming in, to simplify my original statement. Set C is [0, 1], an infinite range. Set D includes both [0, 1] and the number 2. Subtract set C from set D, you are left with just the number 2. Therefore, the number of elements in set D is exactly one larger than set C, even with both sets being infinite.
This is all definitely getting to a point where it hurts my head too haha. My husband (a mathematician) has talked to me about the idea that infinite = every possible permutation of circumstances exists. Think about all the numbers between 0 and 1, it’s infinite. Now think about how many numbers exist between 0 and 2: also infinite, but also double the amount of infinite from 0 to 1. And all of those infinite numbers still exclude every other number that exists outside of the range of 0 to 2. So even if we do have infinite universes, that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a universe for every single tiny variation.
IIRC, our universe didn’t create mass and energy from nothing, it was all packed into an exceptionally small point in space and the energy was likely in a form completely unknown to us before the Big Bang. I can’t discount that there may be more of those densely packed points somewhere in the universe that could be used to form new universes. We can’t detect anything like that now, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I’m thinking about the theory idea that involves a new universe being created every time a decision is made. Like if I flip a coin and get heads, another universe suddenly pops up where I got tails. It would need to create its own energy and mass out of nothing, which would break the laws of conservation.
I’m not super well versed in multiverse theories hypotheses though. It is slightly more probable that when our universe began existing, so did all the other alternative universes, in which case they would all have their own energy and mass. But then there would be essentially no chance that we would have alternative selves like in classic multiverse theories, since each universe would have started from the very beginning of time and evolved on its own path.
Edit: some wording
As in the classic theory idea, that each time a decision is made a new reality is created for each choice? For it to be possible would break our fundamental laws regarding conservation of mass and energy. Where would this alternative universe get all that energy and mass from? It’s possible our current understanding of the law is inaccurate, but it’s extremely unlikely.
When I really needed extra money I donated plasma. It’s one of those things that pays you more the more you do it, still not a lot but everything helps. Also seconding dental schools, it won’t be free but can save you thousands
Yay! I was really upset that the only sport I enjoy watching had chosen to go backwards to such a bullshit hateful policy, very happy to hear they reversed the decision. Good on Travis Dermott for protesting this, way too many players didn’t give a shit!
I didn’t exactly need the ending explained, but Everything Everywhere All At Once has so much going on that I got really hyper focused on looking up commentary for everything in the movie. There were a lot of things I missed so I found it really valuable beyond just wanting to deep dive every little detail haha.
Surprisingly, after all the hype of Interstellar being incredibly confusing, I felt like I missed something because it seemed fairly straightforward (not the plot, which was obviously convoluted, just that I understood the ending). Then I looked up explanations of the ending and they fit my interpretation so that was a bit anticlimactic lol
It seems monochrome as it is, with the brown, rather than true black and white. Don’t get me wrong, I like it! I’m just confused. I’ve seen colors in things other people insist are grey before and it always makes me feel like a nut. So I like to clarify when I can, if this is truly black and white or if it has a brown tint.
Edit: just looked up the definition of monochrome, apparently it means both black and white or varying tones of one color. Which makes sense now that I think of it, but I’ve never used monochrome to describe black and white.
am I going crazy seeing brown tones in this apparently black and white picture?
I think it could be very useful, such as for sexual assault victims, but maybe purchase should be tracked similar to Sudafed?
This will also be helpful for sexual assault victims.
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what gave it away?