Aliens From a Parallel Universe May Be All Around Us

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Aliens From a Parallel Universe May Be All Around Us—And We Don’t Even Know It, Study Suggests

Published in 1962 and reprinted on Jan 31, 2025 4:14 PM

Published in 1962 by American astronomer Frank Drake, Ph.D., the eponymous Drake equation sought to estimate the number of detectable alien civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.

This equation takes into account the average rate of star formation in the galaxy, the fraction of those stars that have orbiting planets, and the average number of those planets per star that can support life.

It gets hairier: This formula also considers what fraction of those planets could support intelligent organisms, and whether those organisms can develop technology capable of contacting others.

Now, researchers in Switzerland and the U.K. have homed in on one particular aspect of this equation to contemplate how a crucial component of our universe affects star formation and, by extension, the possibility of intelligent life.

Their paper studies the relationship between the density of a mysterious force in the universe, called dark energy, and the overall number of stars formed in the universe’s history.

Published in November 2024 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, this work describes a new theoretical model of cosmic star formation applied to our universe as well as other possible ones with varying dark energy densities.

In other words, it ponders the likelihood of intelligent life existing in the multiverse:

Our Reality Might Only Exist Because of the Multiverse

But there’s a quantum catch.

Published: Jan 07, 2025

● The famous Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment is a simple example of how quantum systems give rise to classical “reality.” But is such an outcome inevitable?

● A new study, relying on the “many worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics—along with a concept known as “decoherent histories”—shows that increased energy levels suppress possibilities until only single states remain.

● This suggests that classical reality can evolve from a purely quantum foundation.

● Discoveries over the past century have undeniably confirmed that we live in a quantum world. But, strangely, what we discern as “real” is undeniably classical.

This conundrum underpins nearly every facet of quantum mechanics: how do quantum interactions give rise to the classical reality of our everyday experience?

This question is most famously illustrated by the thought experiment known as Schrödinger’s Cat, which essentially breaks down a quantum effect as if it operated on a macro scale.

As a brief refresher, this experiment explains how the “state” of a cat—dead or alive—in an enclosed box is uncertain until that box is opened and an outside observation creates reality.

However, physics can’t yet explain how cats—or, in the quantum sense, atoms—can go from two states to one.

So, an idea known as the “many worlds interpretation” has been put forth, which suggests that both states occur and branch into ever-different multiverses.

Scientists Created the Fattest Schrodinger's Cat Ever
Meow that's exciting

May 03, 2023 1:00 PM EDT

... But there’s a Quantum Catch

Published: Jan 07, 2025

Schrodingers Cat Vector and an Illustration of Life and Death:

● Researchers have created the world’s biggest “quantum cat.”

● Named after Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment, a “quantum cat” can be in superposition—the scientific name for being in two states at the same time.

●This research may help explain why we don’t see superposition in macroscopic objects, and could help to develop more reliable qubits for quantum computing.


The thought experiment of Schrödinger’s Cat goes like this: place a cat, a radioactive atom, and a vial of poison in a box and close the lid. At some point, that atom will decay, triggering a mechanism that breaks the vial of poison and kills the cat. Because you don’t know when that atom will decay, at any given moment the vial could be broken or whole and the cat could be alive or dead. So—in a way—until you open the box, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time.

Now, obviously, a cat cannot be both alive and dead. A living creature can’t exist in two states at once like that. But quantum particles play by different rules than cats, and if you’re dealing with a small enough object under special conditions, it really can exist in two states at the same time. Not in a “we-don’t-know-the-state” way like the cat, but in an “it-really-is-in-two-states-at-the-same-time” way.