The Bubble Theory
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You know when you take a bubble bath, you create many bubbles that float around and stick together on the water. If you just imagine the bubbles as "universes", you get the general idea of the bubble theory. The bubble theory hypothesize that what we call our universe is actually part something much bigger: numerous universes like bubbles, too far for us to observe. They could be created by something called inflation. Inflation is the belief that the universe expanded rapidly after the Big Bang, in effect inflating like a balloon. Eternal inflation, first proposed by Tufts University cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, suggests that some pockets of space stop inflating, while other regions continue to inflate, thus giving rise to many "bubble universes." Thus, our own universe, where inflation has ended, allowing stars and galaxies to form, is but a small bubble in a vast sea of space, some of which is still inflating, that contains many other bubbles like ours. And in some of these bubble universes, the laws of physics and fundamental constants might be different than in ours.