clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

72 surfing through hyperspace
universes that are identical until you travel from one universe to another. You
leave Universe 1, travel to Universe 2, and live for a year in Universe 2 with your
replica in Universe 2. Assume there is a Universe 3 virtually identical to Universe
2 that has two copies of you. You leave Universe 2 and travel to Universe
3, and so on. (One of my favorite tales of replication is David Gerrold's The
Man Who Folded Himself.) By repeating such loops, you can create as many
replicas as you like. The universe gets complicated, but there are no logical contradictions.
Although this multiple-universe concept may seem far-fetched, serious
physicists have considered such a possibility. In fact, Hugh Everett Ill's
doctoral thesis "Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics" (reprinted
in Reviews of Modern Physics) outlines a controversial theory in which the universe
at every instant branches into countless parallel worlds. However, human
consciousness works in such a way that it is only aware of one universe at a time.
This is called the "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. One
version of the theory holds that whenever the universe ("world") is confronted
by a choice of paths at the quantum level, it actually follows both possibilities,
splitting into two universes. These universes are often described as "parallel
worlds," although, mathematically speaking, they are orthogonal or at right
angles to each other. In the many-worlds theory, there may be an infinite number
of universes and, if true, then all kinds of strange worlds exist. In fact, some
believe the controversial notion that somewhere virtually everything must be
true. Could there be a universe where fairy tales are true, a real Dorothy lives in
Kansas dreaming about the Wizard of Oz, a real Adam and Eve reside in a Garden
of Eden, and alien abduction really does occur all the time? The theory could
imply the existences of infinite universes so strange we could not describe them.
My favorite tales of parallel worlds are those of Robert Heinlein. For example, in
his science-fiction novel The Number of the Beast there is a parallel world almost
identical to ours in every respect except that the letter "J" does not appear in the
English language. Luckily, the protagonists in the book have built a device that
lets them perform controlled explorations of parallel worlds from the safety of
their high-tech car. In contrast, the protagonist in Heinlein's novel Job shifts
through parallel worlds without control. Unfortunately, just as he makes some
money in one America, he shifts to a slightly different America where his money
is no longer valid currency, which tends to make his life miserable.
The many-worlds theory suggests that a being existing outside of spacetime
might see all conceivable forks, all possible spacetimes and universes, as always
having existed. How could a being deal with such knowledge and not become
insane? A God would see all Earths: those where no inhabitants believe in God,