Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse?

This lecture was given by the 2009 winner of the Isaac Newton medal, Professor Alan H Guth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was chaired by Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson, Imperial College.

In 1981 Alan Guth proposed that many features of our universe, including how it came to be so uniform and why it began so close to the critical density, can be explained by a new cosmological model which he called inflation. Inflation is a modification of the conventional big bang theory, proposing that the expansion of the universe was propelled by a repulsive gravitational force generated by an exotic form of matter.

Through his invention of the inflationary universe model, Alan Guth has changed the way that cosmologists view the universe. Motivated by ideas of grand unified theories that attempt to unite the electromagnetic and nuclear forces, Professor Guth explored the cosmological consequences of a hypothetical new substance called the false vacuum. Read More >>

Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? Part I

Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? Part II

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