Scientific Controversies: Many Worlds

Our universe may not be alone! We may live in a multiverse in which every possibility happens, and with each new possibility the universe branches off into another of many worlds. Or we may not. In conversation with astrophysicist and writer Janna Levin, MIT physicists Max Tegmark and Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek discuss the multiverse, many worlds, and the elusive nature of reality.

Featuring:
Frank Wilczek (Nobel Laureate, Herman Feschback Professor of Physics at MIT, author of The Lightness of Being)

Max Tegmark (Professor Physics at MIT, author of Our Mathematical Universe)

Janna Levin (Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard/Columbia, author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman dreams of Turing Machines)

About The Series:
Major scientific discoveries can disrupt the traditional order, leaving scientists adrift in concepts that resist familiar intuitions and beliefs. Of the new ideas that emerge, some will be wrong and some will be right. Honest and open scientific controversy helps disentangle one from the other. Eventually, one side of a debate grows in strength and finds confirmation in experiments, while the other atrophies. But both sides of a controversy contribute to the breakthrough of actual discovery – when the utterly abstract barges into the realm of the concrete. This series celebrates that passionate spirit of scientific debate. For the Pioneer Works series Scientific Controversies, we take a look at profound topics at the frontier of physics that have inspired unresolved debates: Reality, Time, and Black Holes.

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