What's the difference between parallel universes and alternate dimensions?

What's the difference between parallel universes and alternate dimensions?

parallel universe always exists (instead of it being created when one travels back in time to change history) and (generally) isn't based on a singular difference

Alternative Dimension is based on a singular difference. For example "What if Hitler won WW2"
and then all the changes that sprung forth from that. This can be caused by time travel (but not always)

Earth 2 is a Parallel Universe as its permanently different than Earth 1 and has many differences (instead of one singular difference leading to many differences as time goes on). Its not simply "What if Superman landed in the early 1900s" because more than just that is different (different krypton / different name/ many other characters have different origins not related to Superman's changes)

Don't listen to this guy OP. He's talking out his ass.
They both mean the same thing. English has many words and various ways to express the same idea. This is that. They are the same thing in this case.

if you look at it with current math/sci viewpoint, i know a bad idea in /co but fukkit :)
picture a moment or instant in time as a 3d hologram of everything in the universe, a snapshot of what is the NOW. The time element we experience makes this moment a frame in a movie of the moments strung together with a direction so that there is a part of the movie we have already seen and a part we have yet to see. We now have a past and future, two points make a line, so time is linear for us.
Nowhere in the universe we experience this way can we move in any other direction but the 3 we have spatially, and the involuntary motion, like a current in a river, of the time direction. So we have the 3 axis of motion, x, y, z, or up/down, left/right, ahead/back. What if we could move along a new axis, say w, or dup/reft?
The universe that exists in that direction and moving along the same "current" of time would be moving parallel to our own, and we would call it a Parallel Universe. It could be different in any way from our own, but it would have to have 3 dimensions and move along the 4th one with us. This limits its possible configurations to ones at least approximating our own, we would experience all of them as possible variations of our universe, but in an infinity of possible variations, accounting for all the tropes akin to the evil mustachioed other selves of Star Trek and alternate histories stories, one difference or all different.

The Alternate Reality concept comes from the idea of changing the basic configuration of the universe in question, like more or less than 3 spacial dimensions, think the 5d Batmite, or the places Dr Strange deals with.

Well in marvel at least it's a size thing.Dimensions like Asgard are smaller than universes,I'm not sure how it is for dc.But asgardian realms,the dark dimension,negative zone etc are all smaller than universes

Really? How much smaller?

A Dimension is a way to describe a number of coordinates necessary to pinpoint an accurate location, like 0-d, 1-d, 2-d or 3-d; however parallel universes are different from each other by big or small differences, every multiverse is comprised by parallel universes, but things like Asgard, the Dark Zone, the Phantom Zone, and aetherial things in the axis of gods in the DC Multiverse like the Skyands, Heaven and Hell COULD be considered alternate dimensions, but I'd call them more accurately realms of reality.

There's no difference.

There is, however, a difference between alternate universes and alternate timelines.

If the rock of eternity is outside of the universes, does that mean that there is only one wizard across the multiverse? One captain marvel? One of each god in the source?

That doesn't sound right

>realms of reality.
I think they are called planes of existence. Taken from the old D&D planes stuff.

Yes. No. What?

Parallel universe is our universe with a difference.
An alternate dimemsion is completely seperated from our universal family.
Think of the speed force as an alternate dimension and earth one as an parallel universe.

Perhaps when shazam interacts with Billy he interacts with all Billy's

ITT: a bunch of autists fails to wrap their head around how words can have more than one meaning and different words can mean the same thing

Yeah, plane of existance works too.

Let me explain, it's actually rather complicated.
The rock of Eternity is singular, however as you can see in the pages of Multiversity: Thunderworld, not only is there multiple Captain Marvels, there's also multiple wizard Shazams that due to universal perspective, can't see each other, the rock is the source of Multiversal magic which is, indeed, unique.

It's outside any universe but it's within the multiverse. And the source is... the Overmind.

In the Skylands exist any heaven of any religion, like the egyptian Aaru, in the Underworld exist every afterlife of every religion, whilst in Heaven and Hell judeochristian dogma is respected.

Oh right I forgot about Thunderworld. Thanks for clearing that up

If Zeus lives in the Skylands as one dude across the multiverse, does that mean every version of Wonder Woman whose origin is daughter of Zeus are half sisters to each other?

you have to acquire speed for 16 hours in order to travel to the QPU (quadruple parallel universe)

Not every Wonder Woman across the multiverse have the same origin story, and no, it's more complicated.

Every variation of any religion exists in the Skylands, aztec gods, mayans, romans, and considering that Mercury came out in Earth-2, I'd wager that the roman pantheons from Earths 1 and 2 are different, not every religion is in every universe, the discrepancies between the universes include dogmas and ideas.

There you go.

You could be living in XYP but still be in the same universe as XYZ and have no clue.

Emanations!

Also a lot of the Wonder Women have alternative pantheons

Would that mean that Zeus fucked every universe's version of the same woman?

Not every character has a version across the universe, the only one that does is Superman.

What if there's 52 alternate dimensions within each parallel universe?!

/hypercrisis

I can think of a Batman for most of these worlds, or at least someone as Batman-like as most of the "Supermen".

That doesn't answer the question

Zeus:
>Hmm, she was the best lay I've had in an aeon. I should call her again... but it wouldn't be as good as the first time. I know, I'll venture into parallel universes and fuck each copy of her I can find. Maybe I'll turn into a swan for some of them, that always a good laugh

Superman is in every universe, Batman not necessarily.

Does Superman exist in Thunderworld? I was under the impression that that was Cap's turf

This does.

Greek mythology on Earth-1 is different from the one on Earth-2.

Captain Marvel is Earth-5's Superman.

Yes, there is only one Wizard. user who responded is incorrect.

>Multiversity: Thunderworld

Actually this showed us ONE wizard (which makes sense since the Rock of Eternity is it's own ~ I am presuming pocket ~ dimension within the DC multiverse. As with Apokolips or New Genesis, there is ONLY one of those in the multiverse.

NOW, there may be multiple Captain Marvels, but I suspect that Grant was going for the single in this story, but the Multiversity arc showed multiple Sivanas and several of them mentioned having gotten rid of their Marvels, if I am recalling correctly.

The Wizard from Thunderworld is different from the wizard from the Justice League Annex with Shazam.

Depends on whose continuity. Like user said, they're used interchangably but in general Sup Forums practice, Alternate Reality is usually applied to divergent timelines while Dimension is mostly used for separate universes with no causal connection to our own, often with their own physical laws and other BS. (The term Dimension itself is BS since it's purely mathematical) Parallel Universes can be either/or but usually follow some kind of similar path of development to ours.

There are multiple Captains Marvel - remember the spread with all the subway cars?

Considering he greentexted
>Multiversity: Thunderworld
I'm guessing he didn't read it.

>Greek mythology on Earth-1 is different from the one on Earth-2.
What's the difference?

Wonder Woman from Earth-2 worshipped a weird mash up of roman and greek gods.

What were the actual differences? You can call almost every depiction of Greek gods ever a weird mashup of roman and greek.

So whats the deal with the black rock of eternity?. Is there the evil shazam who gives power to alex luthor of E3?

Not quite, in our real history, greek gods were well established until romans took them and changed their names, like Zeus being Jupiter and Hermes being Mercury, one's older than the other.

In Earth-2, at th beggining, you see, at least, Mercury that certainly bears no resemblance to the Hermes from Azzarello's Wonder Woman, but she also claims to have the knowledge to battle bestowed upon her by Athena and Artemis.

There's a wizard Shazam for every universe.

>There's a wizard Shazam for every universe.

So there is a mazahs for every universe too?

No he's just the Shazam from Earth-3.

E3 is full of dicks. Thanks for the answer

This is nice distinction, actually, but scientifically, to the extent that we are talking about scientists who want to play around with Quantum physics and the possibility of a multiverse, they typically say that other universes are parallel to one another and generally were created in the same inflationary expansion, and to put it simply, this expansion created multiple realities (so, yes, parallel) but that each might be different and this difference might represent in, practically speaking, different ways: "There could be different values for the constants of nature (like the electron charge or the strength of gravity) or there could be different laws of nature altogether (like energy and electric charge conservation)."

So not as specific as Hitler won WWII, although this is often how writers use this on TV shows and comic books, etc., or If Superman landed in Communist Russia not Kansas, etc.

Parallel universe involves physics, alternate dimensions are usually what you'd properly define as an AU

A real alternate dimension would either be just sound waves or something because a real one would involve colors and overlapping spatial properties we couldn't percieve

You guessed incorrectly. I've actually read it several times, I simply forgot this specifically >the spread with all the subway cars

And, in any event, I said there 'may be multiple Captain Marvels' although that's not what Multiversity Guidebook showed us, as so many Anons here have already discussed, and there is ONLY ONE Rock of Eternity and only one Wizard. That's not even a Morrison/Multiversity thing, that was previously established since COIE.

They're typically the exact same thing; it just depends on what the author's going for.

Take, for instance, DC's Multiverse. Earth 1 and Earth 2 are parallel universes, but the space inside of Doctor Fates helmet and Gemworld are alternate dimensions.

>alternate dimensions

I think Nabu's Helm leads to a pocket dimension. Genworld, I don't know enough about. Although a pocket dimension is certainly a alternate one. I kind of like Morrison (or whomever came up with) idea of tesseract spaces.

However, I think folks are confusing Alternate DIMENSIONS with ALTERNATE UNIVERSES in some of this discussion.

in Marvel-7, this was the concept behind the various Dimensional Planes.

the various magical\divine realms also often exist in different ENERGY STATES: existing in the same dimension but non interacting with each other.
This is the concept behind Parallel Universes.
Alternate timelines were a different matter, though similar to Parallel Universes: they did exist in the same space, but were separated by different QUANTUM STATES This meant there were only LIMITED possible alternate timelines: if a particle could exclusively spin left or right, a world where it would spin up would only be an imaginary story and wouldn't actually exist.
Everything changed with the Eight Omniverse.
Marvel-8 started in a completely different way then Marvel-7, so we don't know how things work now.
Hell, the Cosmic Balance is still being build anew.

There is only one wizard who, like all gods in the multiverse, projects himself in different shapes in the different worlds of the multiverse. It's like light going through a prism. That's why the thunderworld wizard is the classic version and the n52 wizard is australian.

I really liked that video, it was confy.

No. New 52 is shit, that's all. That's a universe where magic failedand will eventually come back. Johns bullshit won't be Canon forever

Forgot to add, Parallel Worlds can refer to different planets within a single universe, like Counter Earth. It's an archaic idea though and DC at least probably doesn't make much use of it anymore, if ever.

I would love to see this shit become part of Flash lore.

I mean, shit, it makes more sense than most of the speedforce bullshit.

The fuck hapened to Yoshi?

He got salty, from the looks of it.

alternate bump

The only difference is the terminologies.

...

Imagine you are playing a game. Lets use a shitty game everyone knows, like Skyrim

So you play through Skyrim and Skyrim is for the nords so you join the Stormcloaks and smack the Empire around.

Then you decide Fuck The Nords because they're all drunken fags so you make a new game and this time you join the Empire.

These are Parallel Universes. They are mostly the same thing but with differences between them.

If you quit Skyrim and decide to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R you are now in an Alternate Dimension.

Oh man you need to read Black Science cuz while thats a nice idea... OH SWEET CHRIST ITS A BIRD-LIZARD TRYING TO EAT MY SOUL!