How did the universe come into being? Theoretical physicist Avi Loeb also asks himself this question. (Image: stock.adobe.com – Tobias Kempf, Focus)
How rare are we?
: This is what a current article by the well-known Harvard professor Avi Loeb. In it, he critically examines the idea that humans, as intelligent beings, occupy an absolutely exceptional position in the universe.
His criticism of this is not surprising when you look at Loeb’s theory of the origin of the universe, which he published in 2021 in the magazine Scientific American caused a great stir.
This theory states that our entire universe could have been created in the laboratory by a technologically advanced civilization.
Loeb is not, unsurprisingly, uncontroversial. We find the considerations of the most important astronomer since Stephen Hawking
(Quote from the Focus issue 25/2021) but still.
Loeb has been a professor of astrophysics at Harvard University in the USA since 1997. (Photo: Chris Michel)
How Loeb justifies his theory
It is sometimes almost impossible to understand Loeb’s train of thought without a deeper knowledge of theoretical physics, as the following quote makes clear:
Since our universe has a flat geometry with a total net energy of zero, an advanced civilization may have developed technology that creates a baby universe from nothing through quantum tunneling.
But his theory also contains more tangible lines of thought such as the following:
If this has happened, it could not only explain the origin of our universe, but also indicate that a universe like ours […] like a biological system that maintains the longevity of its genetic material through multiple generations.
Just as humans ensure their continued existence through reproduction and evolution, the creation of ever new Baby Universes
serve a similar purpose. In Focus-Interview Loeb described it with these words:
Our universe would have been created in a laboratory and we or another species could later produce a baby universe in the same way in the laboratory. And so baby follows baby after baby – a continuum like in humans.
According to Loeb, humanity is currently still a long way from achieving such a thing.
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Four classes of civilizations
Loeb divides the level of technological civilizations into the following four classes:
- Class A: Can recreate the cosmic conditions that led to their existence.
- Class B: Can adapt the conditions in its immediate environment to be independent of its home star.
- Class C: Cannot recreate habitable conditions on their planet for the time after the death of the sun.
- Class D: In the course of developing new technologies, we carelessly destroy our own natural habitat.
According to Loeb’s statements, we are at level C or even D. In order to create a new baby universe, however, we would need a level A civilization.
- Either So, if we follow Loeb’s theory, we must at some point reach level A ourselves in order to maintain the continued existence of the universe.
- Or we are not as rare as one might think, or rather there is at least one other technologically (more) advanced civilization in our universe.
Loeb repeatedly tries to prove the latter scientifically.
The difficult search for evidence
Loeb discussed in more detail in a scientific article whether this object called “Oumuamua”, discovered in space in 2017, could be of artificial origin. You can find it at arxiv.org/pdf/2110.15213v1.
In his search for evidence of the existence of other intelligent civilizations, Loeb repeatedly keeps an eye on certain objects from space, some of which have also landed on Earth.
But there is criticism of his approachas in the case of a meteorite impact in the sea near Papua New Guinea in 2014.
- Loeb suspects an origin outside our solar system or from another civilization, based in part on seismic measurements of the sound waves at the time of impact.
- Again Spiegel in March 2024, there are studies by other researchers that refute Loeb’s statements. Her fitting lecture had the telling title
Probably not aliens
.
Also interesting: NASA’s Curiosity robot accidentally opened a rock on Mars, revealing a yellow treasure
So it could remain the case for some time that we humans feel alone in space and that we do not know exactly how all this came into being.
Nevertheless, these are extremely exciting (and dizzying) topics.
Let us know in the comments what you think about Loeb’s theory of the origin of the universe and whether you believe there is more intelligent life in space than humans.
