Wampum

What should you get that precocious lad or lass with an interest in science as well as a God complex? Well,it may not be ready this year but the the Build Your Own Universe kit may be an option some day. From NPR is one of the most interesting stories I have a read in a while:

Is this a joke? No, say a bunch of physicists. One day, it may be possible for a person to create a universe!

This is not going to happen tomorrow. Not even close. But according to Columbia University physics professor Brian Greene, it is theoretically not impossible (which is his way of saying the possibilities are not zero) that one day, a person could build a universe.

The very idea is so startling it's hard to know what this means.

Think about it this way: One day (far off, no doubt), it may be possible to go into a laboratory on Earth, create a "seed" -- a device that could grow into a universe -- and then there would have to be a way to get that seed, on command, to safely expand into a separate, infinite, unexplorable but very real alternate universe...

So why do it? Well, Greene says given the chance to make a universe of his own, "I might have a little trouble resisting this possibility. Just because it's so curious, this idea that because of your volitional act, you are creating a universe that could give rise, perhaps, to things we see around us."

Linde seconded that in his New Scientist interview.

"Just imagine if it's true and there's even a small chance it really could work," he said. "In this perspective, each of us can become a god."