The Evolution of the Milky Way

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There are two scenarios for the origin of our universe. One is one much like we think is real and there was a big bang. Another might be there's sort of a galaxy kind of like the Milky Way and people like us, but the whole background space time is otherwise empty. Does your theory explain why our universe looks like the former rather than the latter? Right. I'm writing a paper on that. Hurry up. What are you doing being on podcasts when you should be writing your paper, Thomas? Okay. But then you will see a switch. You feel with feel a switch in from your second scenario to your first scenario. So if you only sort of loosely say,

Is there a multiverse, and if so, how should we think of ourselves within it? In many modern cosmological models, the universe includes more than one realm, with possibly different laws of physics, and these realms may or may not include intelligent observers. There is a longstanding puzzle about how, in such a scenario, we should calculate what we, as presumably intelligent observers ourselves, should expect to see. Today's guest, Thomas Hertog, is a physicist and longstanding collaborator of Stephen Hawking. They worked together (often with James Hartle) to address these questions, and the work is still ongoing.

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Thomas Hertog received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a professor of theoretical physics at KU Leuven. His new book is On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory.

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