Chapter 4 - Inflation and Parallel Universes

The fourth chapter in my novel concerns itself with inflation and parallel universes. There is theory that the universe was created from a small amount of net matter, perhaps even as little as an ounce. In nature, we can observe a large amount of symmetry. So, physicist David Gross once said “ the secret of nature is symmetry, but much of the texture of the world is due to mechanisms of symmetry breaking.”

So, if the big bang were perfectly symmetrical, there should be an equal amount of matter and antimatter produced. Which is why we should wonder: why do we exist?

Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov proposed that perhaps the big bang was not perfectly symmetrical. There may have been a tiny break in symmetry where matter dominated over
antimatter at the moment of creation which made possible the universe we see around us.

The way the symmetry breaks at the very beginning of the universe denotes how the universe will look like. Think of when a mirror shatters into a thousand pieces. The original mirror was symmetrical so that whichever way you turned it, it still reflected light in the same way. But once the symmetry breaks, the mirror is shattered. So, depending on how the symmetry breaks will determine how the mirror shatters. So, they way the symmetry breaks in the creation of a universe will determine how it will look.

I found this theory very interesting, because it states that there are many other universe that exist, and it can give you a hint as to what other universes may look like. For example, the way the symmetry is broken will determine the strength of various forces. If nuclear forces were decreased the formation of stars could cease leaving the universe in complete darkness, and so life could not exist. Another possibility is that more stable particles, like protons could be created. This means that there would be many more strange chemical elements. These elements could become part of our DNA making like look very much different.

The importance of symmetry is shown in this chapter and I have learned that it is the reason we look like we do. It decided how strong gravity would be and how stable protons would be, creating humans. I was surprised at how such a subtle difference in matter over antimatter could create such a huge universe and how big of an impact the matter had. It starts to make me wonder about life in other universes and how different it would be. And how unique our universe must be.