As her new book on the origins of the universe is published, the Albanian-American scientist explains how her work on multiverse theory influenced Stephen Hawking
aura Mersini-Houghton was born in Albania and grew up under a totalitarian communist regime which, until its collapse in 1991, cut the country off from the rest of the world. Influenced by her father, Nexhat Mersini, a mathematician, she developed a keen interest in physics and, in 1994, won a Fulbright scholarship to study in the US. Her first book,, describes her quest to illuminate the origins of our universe and prove that we are one of many universes in a much vaster multiverse.
The other ingredient was the theoretical findings in string theory. Now, string theory was designed to fulfil that lifelong Einsteinian dream of one single universe explained by the theory of everything. But around 2004, string theory ended up with a whole landscape of many potential energies that could start universes like ours.
I was very intrigued by [Nobel prize-winning physicist] Roger Penrose’s estimate that there was nearly zero chance for our universe to come into existence. I kept dissecting his argument, which is based on the second law of thermodynamics, trying to find out if he did something wrong. Then I realised that the problem was not with the actual calculation, it was more with our way of thinking, that we needed a paradigm shift from one universe to many.
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