In the first half, physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander, a Professor of Physics at Brown University, addressed various cosmological concepts, and talked about how jazz can connect to ideas in physics and mathematics. We listened to Alexander's song, Ornette's Vortex, inspired by the jazz great, Ornette Coleman, who served as musical mentor to Alexander. The composition conjures different kinds of vortexes such as water swirling in a sink, the eye of storm, and a cosmic string, he said. "These vortices...string-like patterns we see," relate to how Coleman improvises with vortex-like melodic structures, he explained. The surface of a star is pulsating with vibrations, just like how a musical instrument vibrates to make sounds, and you can think of all these stars as different notes in a musical universe, he added.
Regarding the notion of the multiverse, Alexander ran across questions about the universe that may not be answerable based on known equations, and this led him to give more credence to the possibility that we could exist among parallel universes. Traversable wormholes-- rips or wrinkles in the space/time fabric, could allow us to instantly cross vast distances, possibly even into other universes, he postulated. Similarly, he's open to the currently discussed theory that we could all exist in a simulation, like a vast computer program.
------------------
In the latter half, former minister for the Assemblies of God Church, Jeffrey Daugherty connected the prophecies of Prophet Daniel, the Antichrist, and the Mandela Effect, in which large numbers of people claim that popular cultural references from the past are being shifted and altered to be different from the collective memory. The effect takes its name from the shared memory that a lot of people had that Nelson Mandela died in prison in South Africa, rather than being released and eventually becoming president of that nation (view a list of some of the additional alternative memories).
Looking at the Bible's Book of Daniel, Daugherty found a prophecy that he believes speaks of our current day and the Mandela Effect. Daniel referred to a future period when people are traveling great distances in a short amount of time, and during this period "He will think to change time and laws...He is going to change epochs." Daugherty interpreted the "He" Daniel refers to, as an entity that can change time, and create diverse timelines. This entity that could tamper with time itself, could be viewed as a kind of Antichrist, working against the teaching of Jesus, and trying to prevent the disclosure of spiritual and scientific truths, Daugherty has concluded.
News segment guest: Peter Davenport