quote [ Today, the peer-reviewed Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP) published Hawking’s final theory on the universe’s origin, titled “A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?” The famed physicist wrote the paper in collaboration with Thomas Hertog, a professor at Belgium’s Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), and it presents a multiverse theory unlike any other.

Here’s a (really) simplified explanation of (one) multiverse theory. The Big Bang happened. The universe expanded. In some places, it kept expanding. In others, it stopped. In the places where it stopped, universes formed — ours, and a potentially infinite number of others. ]