"Living Space" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1956 issue of Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1957 collection Earth Is Room Enough. It concerns itself with a possible consequence of the existence of parallel universes, specifically the ones where life on Earth never developed. Plot summary Clarence Rimbro owns the entire planet Earth. This is no great accomplishment as, thousands of years in our future, anyone can do it. There are an infinite number of possible Earths, each existing in its own parallel universe. If the chance of life arising on any one of them is about 50%, then half the time a random choice of a parallel universe will lead to a dead Earth. Since there are a trillion people living in this time, it would be almost impossible for them to live on one Earth, so each family sets up its house and garden, protected by a force field and running on solar power, on a dead Earth. Clarence enjoys total independence for his family, and an entire planet's worth of living space. As there are still an infinite number of dead Earths, they can never be filled up, and nobody is worried about the population becoming two trillion in fifty years or so. Clarence finds he has a problem. There are noises and rumbling disturbing the silence of his domain. Naturally, he does what people usually do, and complains to the authorities. At the Housing Bureau are two co-workers; Bill Ching, who believes fervently in the parallel Earths as the solution, and Alec Mishnoff, who worries about something he only hints at to others. Both agree to visit Clarence's Earth to check out the mysterious sounds. With a seismograph they determine that the rumbles are due to some kind of surface activity, not deep earthquakes. To get a location, someone will have to leave the force field and set up a second seismograph. Mishnoff, with his own agenda, sets out in a protective suit into the carbon dioxide atmosphere. It does not take him long to find the source of the sounds. When he does, he is accosted by a stranger who talks to him in a dead language—German. After a confusing conversation, Mishnoff realizes that the man is from a parallel Earth where Nazi Germany conquered the entire planet. They are blasting and