I saw an interesting show on the Science Channel about Membrane theory or just M theory.  To understand M theory we first need to look at older theories.  
    First there was the "Big Bang".  It created the universe, or at least the physical universe.  Apparently from nothing or, if your religious or spiritual, it was created from the spiritual universe.  Science couldn't except that since it deals with things beyond there their ability to measure.  So they needed to come up with an alternative.  That alternative is "The Singularity".
    The Singularity is an interesting idea.  Suppose you put one of those tiny poppy seeds in your microwave and it pops into a thing the size of an eighteen wheeler.  A little far fetched you think?  Then you may have difficulty with the singularity.  This theory said that before the Big Bang, the universe existed as a singularity.  A physical, material object smaller than an atom, but containing all of the matter in the universe.  One day the singularity, for no apparent reason, popped.  And the universe "expanded".  So that messy creation concept was gone so no reason to get all religious on us.
    But, alas, after many years of trying, they just couldn't come up with mathematical formulas for the singularity, or answer the question from those crazy spiritual people "what created the singularity?" So they started looking for an alternative.
    While riding a train to London, three physicists began talking and bouncing ideas off each other.  Kind of like the cartoonists who created "Teenage Ninja Turtles".  
    The idea they came up with is that the ten dimensions of string theory isn't enough.  There is an eleventh dimension.  In the eleventh dimension there are "membranes" which are like really huge bedsheets woven from quantum string.  Apparently, though, the string is not vibrating, so it exists as an infinitely large, but extremely thin rippling membrane.  They are so thin that if you piled a million of them in a stack like pancakes, the stack would still be invisible.  There are an infinite number of these membranes floating around in "stuff" and they frequently bump into each other.  A huge, celestial dodge-em cars.  When they bump together, a 'big bang" happens and a new universe is created (yes, I know we're using that word again, but it's ok because we're not talking about something spiritual).  Since there are an infinite number of membranes, as proved on paper by complex calculations so it must be true, bumping into each other all the time, they have created an infinite number of universes.
    So now the problem of the singularity is gone and instead we have an infinite number of membranes creating an infinite number of infinitely large universes.  Unfortunately, we can only see the universe we are currently in.  The rest are totally invisible and undetectable.  How convenient.
    There are some obvious questions though that the show didn't answer:

• Who or what created the membranes?
• What is it they are "floating" in?
• What force is causing them to move around?
• What is the source of the incredible energy generated each time they bump together and create a universe?
• Why are they not destroyed when they keep crashing into each other?

In all fairness to the scientists, they may have answers to those questions but they were not mentioned in the show.  Somehow though, I doubt that they have answers for all of them.

    Perhaps they should really consider the concept of spiritual worlds or dimensions that exist outside of space and time rather than going through such contortions and gyrations to try to make everything material.