There are 10^10^16 of them (but #1,000,443,163,313,125,343,132 is the evil one)
The physicists, Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin, calculated the number by first going all the way back to the Big Bang. Linde and Vanchurin posit that the stellar organization and physics of our universe resulted from small perturbations in the otherwise uniform mass of matter and energy that existed milliseconds after the Big Bang. So, the number of possible variations of those perturbations represents the upper limit of possible alternate universes, or about 10^10^10^7 possible alternate universes.
However, because of the physical limits of the human brain, no individual could perceive more than 10^10^16 realities different from our own. And since the perspective of the viewer factors into the calculations (like time dilation in relativity), that’s the number of possible alternate universes.
Of course, that’s the total number of POSSIBLE alternate universes. The number of ACTUAL alternative universes actually depends on depends on how many boxes the Professor made.
[via Technology Review]
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