Expert: Courtney Seligman - 3/15/2011

Question
Dear Ms. Seligman,

What does your expert mind conjure when viewing the Millennium Simulation produced by the Virgo Consortium?  My question is:  Is our universe among many a universe a critical part of a larger operating entity (not spiritual etc..).  Like one cell that is part of a cluster of cells that make up a human organ or eye ball?

Filaments on earth derived from a plant/animal cell seem to gather, join, attach not for filament formations sake - but for a next step purpose..  Our galaxy attaches to clusters among or in a supercluster that ends up webbed together via filaments into a cosmic web....  Is it ridiculous to assume that our cosmic web serves, energizes, is tasked to perform a responsibility or structural duty - we have yet to understand.

I hope you can find the time to answer this question.  If so, I thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Phillip Urso Russo

Answer
I haven't seen the simulation you refer to, but will look it up, as it sounds very interesting. However, regardless of what it shows, every discussion I have seen concerning the nature and origin of our Universe suggests that our Universe is completely separate from any other Universe. Even in so called Multiverse theories, although each Universe can give birth to many others, each new Universe exists in a brand new space time which is completely separate from the space time of any other Universe. Any discussion which imagines any connection between Universes, or being able to go from one Universe to another, is strictly science fiction (very interesting science fiction in some cases, and in fact partly the basis for a short story I wrote, called "Well Met"; but still, just fiction). (Btw, it might be useful to read In the Beginning, at http://cseligman.com/text/prologue.htm and The Expansion of the Universe, at http://cseligman.com/text/galaxies/universe.htm The former discusses the most likely theory of the origin of the Universe, and the latter discusses the history which led to that being considered the most likely theory.)

So no, I don't think that there is any possibility that there is any kind of larger structure which our Universe could be connected to, save in the sense that at some points in space time (e.g., the Big Bang) one Universe creates another; but at the moment of that creation, the two Universes utterly sever, just as thoroughly as if either one or the other had never existed in the first place, making any kind of larger structure an impossibility.

Of course, there are those who might disagree with this answer on aesthetic or philosophical grounds; but I presume you want a scientific answer, rather than a philosophical discussion.