In Leonard Susskind’s new book, “The Cosmic Landscape,” he says the latest version of string theory (now rechristened M-theory) yields a gargantuan number of models: about 10 to the 500th power — the “megaverse.”

Each potential model, he suggests, corresponds to an actual place –another universe as real as our own.

Susskind eagerly embraces the megaverse interpretation because it offers a way to blow right through the intelligent design challenge. If every type of universe exists, there is no need to invoke God (or an unknown master theory of physics) to explain why one of them ended up like ours.