Hopping Around in the Infinite

taykair

Member
Messages
363
One of the reasons I signed up here is because I like to write, and reading posts by other members at a forum usually inspires me to do so. After having read some of the interesting posts here, I think I’ll break my month-long writing block and contribute a tidbit.

I’ve been thinking about alternate universes lately. If there are such things, then how many of them can there be?

Our concept of an alternate universe, especially in the realm of science fiction, usually involves some traveler who finds himself on an Earth where, for example, the Nazis won World War II, or where J. F. Kennedy was not assassinated. However, these are large changes (at least to us).

Leaving aside the fact that even huge changes on our small planet have little to no influence upon the rest of the universe, the fact is that any change, however minute, is nonetheless a change. Each change, large or small, represents an alternate universe.

Now, imagine an alternate universe which is exactly like ours in every respect except that, in the other universe, there is an atom located on a planet in a galaxy millions of light-years from our own which is half a micrometer away relative to its twin atom in our universe. Everything else is exactly the same except for this insignificant difference of the position of a single atom.

Adding up all of the small divergences (not to mention the large ones) would equal a sum so close to infinity that the difference would hardly be worth mentioning.

Given an almost infinite number of alternate universes, and given that the differences between our universe and billions and billions of these other universes are, for all intents and purposes, imperceptible to us, can any of us truly prove that the universe in which we awaken in the morning is the same one in which we fell asleep the previous night? Do we hop from universe to universe, taking the place of our alternate selves, thereby pushing them on to the next universe?

Hey, being here seems to be getting my writing groove back. Either that or I’m a refugee from another universe who has taken the place of that other Taykair. I wonder to which universe he’s gone?
 

StevePurtee

New Member
Messages
2
One of the reasons I signed up here is because I like to write, and reading posts by other members at a forum usually inspires me to do so. After having read some of the interesting posts here, I think I’ll break my month-long writing block and contribute a tidbit.

I’ve been thinking about alternate universes lately. If there are such things, then how many of them can there be?

Our concept of an alternate universe, especially in the realm of science fiction, usually involves some traveler who finds himself on an Earth where, for example, the Nazis won World War II, or where J. F. Kennedy was not assassinated. However, these are large changes (at least to us).

Leaving aside the fact that even huge changes on our small planet have little to no influence upon the rest of the universe, the fact is that any change, however minute, is nonetheless a change. Each change, large or small, represents an alternate universe.

Now, imagine an alternate universe which is exactly like ours in every respect except that, in the other universe, there is an atom located on a planet in a galaxy millions of light-years from our own which is half a micrometer away relative to its twin atom in our universe. Everything else is exactly the same except for this insignificant difference of the position of a single atom.

Adding up all of the small divergences (not to mention the large ones) would equal a sum so close to infinity that the difference would hardly be worth mentioning.

Given an almost infinite number of alternate universes, and given that the differences between our universe and billions and billions of these other universes are, for all intents and purposes, imperceptible to us, can any of us truly prove that the universe in which we awaken in the morning is the same one in which we fell asleep the previous night? Do we hop from universe to universe, taking the place of our alternate selves, thereby pushing them on to the next universe?

Hey, being here seems to be getting my writing groove back. Either that or I’m a refugee from another universe who has taken the place of that other Taykair. I wonder to which universe he’s gone?
 

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