Beyond the Big Bang: Could Our Universe Be One of Many?

When, in December 2024, Emilie presented her amazing lecture on The Origins Of Our Cosmos it was widely agreed that it was one of the best lectures we have ever seen and, also, that Emilie was the speaker most likely to win a Nobel Prize in the future. Having completed her PhD in 2025 Emilie has agreed to come back to talk about, incredibly, an even bigger topic!.

What if the Big Bang was not the beginning of everything, but only the birth of our own cosmic bubble?

Modern cosmology has revealed a Universe far stranger than we could have imagined: billions of galaxies expanding away from one another, invisible forms of matter and energy dominating its contents, and fundamental laws whose properties seem remarkably well suited to the existence of life. One possible – though speculative – explanation is that our Universe is not unique, but one of many.

In this talk, we will explore how the physics of cosmic inflation can naturally lead to a multitude of bubble universes, each with its own laws of Nature. We will see how physicists are beginning to study the birth of such bubbles using computer simulations and innovative laboratory experiments. Finally, we will ask the most important question: could an idea as seemingly untestable as the multiverse ever leave a detectable signature? From scars of ancient bubble collisions to ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself, we will explore how we might one day search for signs of what lies beyond our observable Universe.

Emilie Hertig completed her PhD in Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in 2025. She studied for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at EPFL, in her home country of Switzerland, specializing in theoretical physics. Her first research project, carried out during an exchange year in Vancouver (Canada), focused on measuring the expansion rate of the Universe to shed light on dark energy. Her master’s thesis consisted of searching for extensions of General Relativity in gravitational wave signals. In Cambridge, she is conducting research at the boundary of cosmology and quantum field theory, in a multidisciplinary effort to unveil cosmic origins.

Refreshments will be available from 30 minutes before the advertised start time.

To book your FREE place, please click Register Now from the event page on our website. Alternatively, just turn up!

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