I have always understood the word 'universe' to mean 'everything'. Therefore it constantly puzzles me to hear the term used in the plural and multiples. How can you have more than one everything?
It seems to me we are using the word wrongly. When we find something that is so odd that we cannot fit it into our universe, why do we have to explain it away by concluding it is part of another universe? And what does that mean anyway if the word 'universe' means 'everything'? Why can't that thing we can't explain actually be part of THE universe?
It's like explaining ghosts as something of another world. Why can't they be of this world?
I have also never understood the reasoning behind the Big Bang theory being the beginning of THE universe. I can see that the Big Bang could be the beginning of the VISIBLE universe, but why THE universe?
I suggest we have a language problem here; the precise use of language can be vital in understanding a problem. I think we have the need for a new word, a word to describe the Big Bang system. I will explain:-
We have the planet on which we live and which we call the Earth.
The Earth resides in a system we call the Solar system.
The Solar system resides in a system we call a galaxy, which we have called the Milky Way galaxy.
The question is, in what system does our galaxy reside?
At present it is being called the universe, and I think that is wrong. This is where I think a new word is required. We need a new word to describe the system in which our galaxy and all the other galaxies we can see resides. In other words the visible part of the universe which comprises the matter from the Big Bang.
To call it the universe is to state that everything we can see is actually everything there is, and do we know that to be the case?
Perhaps we could call it the Big Bang system?
Richard