Quantum Worlds Investigations: Unveiling a New Theory of the Multiverse
by Mark Thomas
Staff Writer
MANY UNIVERSES: PARALLEL, OVERLAPPING, DISTINCT
“The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.” (David Hume)
Everything including light, people and rocks appears to be made of particles. And according to the theory of constant speed, they’re all moving through spacetime at ‘c’ 299,792,458 metres/sec. The speed of light in our observable universe.
But not here. For one very simple reason. Not all universes are the same.
You’re across the street from Saphire 51. A glitzy place in Manhattan with an endless queue of club-dressed guys and girls halfway around the block waiting to get in.
If you were right with your research, Dr Malcolm Petraeus is inside at his table entertaining flashy girls with expensive cocktails and conversation so far beyond them it’s hilarious. Hilarious that a theoretical physicist would resort to Quantum Mechanics to charm a pair of undergrads with plans for an intimate after-party.
But here’s the thing. If you’re going to go hopping around in the Multiverse looking for kicks, a change of scenery, or a new life, you’ve got to know more than your average software engineer or high school science teacher.
This is a realm reserved for the brightest of the bright in theoretical physics and theorical cosmology. With some, the ones who become your problem, losing perspective.
POLICING THE MULTIVERSE: MAINTAINING STABILITY
“All these different worlds and every arrangement of configurations are all there just like our arrangement of configurations, we just happen to be in this one.” (Sean Barclay)
Image by StockCake
Most multiverse ideas are hypotheses because they lack testable or falsifiable predictions, which is a core requirement of the scientific method. Strange, you choose to bring up those words now. The words Professor Davies wrote on the board that crisp September morning eight years ago.
Your first day at the Academy.
Clearing your head of the questions that started a year ago, about your job and what you’re doing for an agency that doesn’t exist, you cross, heading for the door and the usual problems.
Which begin immediately with bouncers the size of farm equipment ready to bug you about your lack of interest in the queue and of course the gun.
“What’s QWI?”
You look up at the muscle-head trying to make sense of your ID. “I’m a special agent with Quantum Worlds Investigations.”
He eyes his pal with a sarcastic smirk then looks back. “Quantum Worlds. Wow. Is that Federal?”
Of the many things you’ve learned over the years, there are two you consider doctrine; do your research and hope like hell your target hasn’t hopped to a world where capitalism never caught on. But then, they rarely do.
You lean in close. “200 and you let me go inside to get a guy who doesn’t belong here. Or we have a lengthy conversation that gives you a headache and puts you under 24/7 surveillance… for the rest of your life.”
You watch him think it over before accepting the 200 and stepping aside - admiring his ability to process this far above his paygrade.
ON MASS/ENERGY AND CONSERVATION LAWS
“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.” (Antoine Lavoisier)
“The law of conservation of mass/energy has established itself as one of the few unshakeable theoretical guideposts in the wilderness of the world.” (Chris Von Bayer)
Image by StockCake
The law of infinite probability states; if an event has even a tiny chance of happening, given enough time or opportunities, it will eventually happen.
It’s a rough justification for chasing a guy through universes claiming probabilities said it was inevitable. But then, you, as far as you know had nothing to do with the laws of probabilities – or the conservation law of mass/energy you’re sworn by oath to uphold.
Now inside the club, you make your way around the dancefloor to the stairs, then up to Petraeus’ table and pull back a chair.
With the girls giving you the once over, you look the fine doctor in the eyes. He knows who you are and that you’d be coming for him. What happens next is up to him. More or less. You put your gun on the table and check your watch – just to get things moving.
“I’m this important?”
You eye the girls, who are justifiably paralysed, and wait for him to send them off. What you’re about to discuss is nothing they need to hear. And if this turns exciting; it’s nothing they need to witness.
“Doctor, you’ve created an imbalance. There’s damage you may be causing to this and to our world.”
“That’s theoretical.”
“You don’t say.”
“You going to recite conservation laws for me along with my rights?”
“Must I?”
“Look. Our universe has 10^80 atoms. The same for this one. You want to show me the proof that accelerating the particles in a single human, moving them from one universe into another is going to cause something catastrophic?”
Always the tricky part with these guys. Mainly because they’re right. You don’t have that proof. And to your knowledge, no one does. But then, what exists in quantum mechanics besides theories and probabilities?
“That’s not my job. You jumped worlds, Doctor. Even if you’re right, there are other considerations. And possible consequences.”
Either polite or stalling, he allows you to show you’re more than a cop – listening to your description of the Velocity Multiverse Theory. Overlapping universes occupying the same infinite space – each with its 10^80 particles moving at different speeds – without interacting or seeing each other.
Accelerate or decelerate yours even slightly, you become like those virtual photons that pop into and out of existence. Leaving one universe – landing in the next. Or the next or the next.
And with infinite universes, there are of course infinite probabilities of landing in one that had all its 10^80 atoms order themselves into one that was close to if not an exact copy of ours. Maybe with different histories and a few other incidentals that didn’t fall into the same order. Green sky. Less gravity. Water with the viscosity of Maple syrup.
Funny thing about playing with infinities. Really hard to wrap your head around sometimes.
WHEN PROBABILITIES ARE INFINITE: ANYTHING IS LIKELY
“Within an infinite number of unlikely events, many will occur frequently.” (Kalifer Deil)
Image by StockCake
Oscar Wilde once said: “To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” And though hesitant to boast your intellect, what happened next was hardly unexpected.
With security showing up to bug you about the loaded handgun in a club – demanding again to see your ID, Petraeus did what most of them do. He took off for the stairs leaving you with the usual argument and ensuing fight scene.
Which went on for a bit with people screaming, broken glass and furniture and all that. Until you managed your way to the door and outside looking a little more beat up than usual.
Now on the landing with the kids in the queue and the bouncers backing away, you jam to the street and look left at nothing then right where you see that odd but familiar distortion – like looking at the buildings through a sheet of plexiglass – watching it bend inwards then back out.
“Imagine that.”
Not willing to let this end here, allow him to accelerate or decelerate to another parallel world sending you home to restart your research, you tap your implant to get a fix on the velocity of the universe into which he jumped. It quickly appears on your right cornea. c = 300,000,001 m/sec.
He’s accelerated. And from his bio, he knows what he’s doing and did not accelerate to an Earth that never formed liquid water or see a Great Oxygenation Event or the origin of life and beings evolve. Or into a universe without a Cosmological Constant needed for stars and galaxies to form.
With that distortion fading, you make the quick decision and accelerate to the speed of the new parallel universe and head in after him.
THE THEORY OF THE VELOCITY MULTIVERSE: IT’S ALL ABOUT “c”
“In our universe, ‘c,’ the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres/sec. It cannot be sped up or slowed down in a vacuum. But then, that’s in our universe.” (Mark Thomas – The Velocity Multiverse)
Image by StockCake
Voices. Car horns. The sky is middle of the day bright. You’re on a busy corner in a city that looks like London with more than a few people pointing at you while backing away.
You turn at the sound of screeching tyres. And there’s Petraeus after nearly getting creamed by a car, heading down Kingsway away from Portsmouth.
You take off running hard, weaving in and out of people – trying to keep your eyes on your Theoretical Physicist turned track star. At Carey Street, you pull up at the corner to look for him and take a hard blow to the head sending you down to the pavement.
“Seriously Doc?!”
Still beat to shit from the New York club, now with fresh blood pouring from your right ear, you climb to your feet and begin scanning boulevards and the faces in the crowd forming around you.
“He went down Houghton, then…”
You look at the theatrically freaked out young woman then at a row of high-rise offices – with no Petraeus in sight. “Did he…?”
“…like into transparent film or something.”
“Wouldn’t you know it.”
You turn and give her a smile then take off again while tapping your XR-P implant getting the velocity of the new universe assuming the doctor had his escape practised and planned.
Running hard, looking directly into the afterglow, you watch the digits fall into place on your cornea: c = 300,021,000 m/sec.
He’s accelerated into an even higher velocity universe. And thinking of Robert Frost who said: “The best way out is always through,” you accelerate and dive in after him. Landing in the snow outside a corner pub in what looks like a fishing village in the arctic – in the middle of a spectacularly cold night.
“Really?! Couldn’t pick a beach in the Bahamas?!”
Getting to your feet, you brush off and holster your weapon. The windows are fogged and strung with Christmas lights. What’s about to happen when you step inside, though an unknown, is infinitely better than the Negative 39 C you’re managing in a suit.
Without waiting for your fingers to go permanently numb, you grab the door and push.
TRAVELLING THE MULTIVERSE: VELOCITY NOT WAVE FUNCTION
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” (Douglas Adams)
Image by StockCake
What happened next was a continuation of the same theme – the same chase – the same demand for improvisation since your first day as a Quantum Worlds Investigator.
First it was shaking up some Icelandic fishermen in a smelly pub who were thrilled you dropped in – then back out into the snow through the side door to that familiar energy afterglow.
From there it was to an outdoor market in Sao Paulo where Petraeus hid inside a spice merchant’s pop-up until you caught on – went in to investigate taking another well-targeted and thoroughly unexpected slam to the head with something that looked like a Cricket bat but probably wasn’t.
Then it was punching the shit out of each other on the observation deck of the Seattle Space Needle for a crowd of tourists with their phones out playing citizen journalists with the remarkably formidable Petraeus then finding a doorway to decelerate to a lower universe.
And now, after following him in, you’re outside the Louvre pyramid in Paris in a Biblical downpour taking and throwing punches with very little left to give.
After 15 minutes of this hilarity, looking like a couple of punch-drunk business guys who need to go home to sober up, with neither of you able to continue, you’re sitting ripped, soaked and bleeding with your backs against the glass Giza staring out at the traffic like pals contemplating the meaning of life, the multiverse and everything.
There’s a moment in every guy’s life when he looks at himself and asks if it’s worth it. If he’s chosen the right career path and whether there’s something out there that may provide him with the same sense of purpose. The same worth. With conceivably less punishment.
And for you, this seems to be that moment.
CURIOSITY AND OPEN MINDS: FROM FIRE TO PARTICLE COLLIDERS
“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” (Eden Phillpotts)
Image by StockCake
“How do you know?”
Still sitting in that torrential downpour with your knees up, trying to stop the blood from flowing into your right eye with a red-soaked handkerchief, you snap a look over at Petraeus who’s offering you his.
Strange. As beat up as you are with an open gash on his forehead and a cheek that looks like an eggplant, he chooses now to show he’s a classy guy.
“Know what exactly?” You take the hanky and turn to him – and begin mopping the blood from his forehead.
“That you’re doing something important.”
“I don’t know. You may want to ask me at another time.” You continue cleaning him up.
“Conservation laws are for closed systems. The multiverse is expanding. Which means it’s open, and something is coming in.”
You stop for a moment and look at him. “What are you after Doctor? I worked up your bio. I don’t believe you left your career at CERN for kicks. What are you really doing?”
He gives you a smile that seems fatherly – gaining your respect and further shaking your belief in what you’re doing. You watch him beat up and bloody and drenched pull away from the glass and stand. Then turn and look down at you.
For minutes you sit staring into the eyes of a man who’s spent his life trying to understand something you and most physicists barely grasp. And there again is that feeling – that there’s more you don’t know than you do. And that you have no right to be doing this.
And that he’s about to say something that you’re eager to hear. Something that will relieve you of the questioning and the second guessing.
“This world organised itself differently. No wars. No defence spending. The money from all governments goes into less destructive, infinitely more important things – like education and science. There’s never a fight for funding here. With global collaboration, the advances we’ve made and are making… could never happen there.”
“I need to take you back Doctor.”
He nods and drops you a hand. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“I want to show you something.” You take his hand allowing him to pull you up. And with him supporting you with an arm around your waist, you start across the Cour Napoleon for the Carrousel.
“I still have a mission… and a life back there.”
Guiding you in that relentless downpour, he smiles and nods again. “I know. See our lab and the work we’re doing. And the world you could be part of. Then make your decision.”
And without another word, like beat up old soldiers you head for the beauty and wonders and mysteries awaiting you. Beginning with the Paris Metro.
Mark Thomas (T. E. Mark)
StorytellingScience