Infinite Possibilities
In a parallel world, you are doing something else. Maybe you’re having exciting adventures, instead of being stuck at a desk. Maybe you’re making an Oscar-winning film, not running the catering truck. Maybe you’re living in your hometown, rather than dying in Iraq. Or maybe you’re begging for crumbs, instead of brushing past homeless people on your way into the limo.
It could happen. Recent research by Oxford physicists confirmed that the “many worlds” idea, first published in 1955 by Princeton physicist Hugh Everett, actually works (at least in theory). Everett came up with it to explain some of the more baffling aspects of quantum physics – by saying that, since the universe is infinite, every possible outcome of an event exists somewhere in its own universe. (Appropriately enough, there are variations on this notion.) This, according to such brainiacs as David Deutsch (author of The Fabric of Reality), makes time travel more of a possibility by solving the paradoxes associated with it. Like the famous “grandfather paradox” in which, if you traveled back in time and killed your grandfather, you might never be born. (Not sure why you’d want to do that, but whatever.) But according to many-worlds, if you traveled backward, you’d just slide into a different timeline, so your original timeline would still exist and you could also kill your grandfather. Sweet!
Quantum physics, though fascinating, gives me a headache. But I still love the idea of parallel universes, because they’re fun to think about. The scientific theory is kind of a twist on the metaphysical notion of “eternal return” – which is captured in that thing they love to say on Battlestar Galactica: “What is happening now has happened before, and will happen again.” Except, with parallel universes, what is happening now is also happening in a different place, with a different outcome.
Alternate-world stories are a grand type of wishful thinking. They’ve been a staple of science fiction since the early 20th century, from authors like H.G. Wells, whose Men Like Gods incorporated multiple universes and parallel times, and Philip K. Dick, whose The Man in the High Castle imagined life if the Nazis won World War II. (Indeed, the grandfather paradox is credited to sci-fi author René Barjavel.) DC Comics used parallel universes in its superhero comics so much that they all had to be merged in the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths. Writers of fan fiction create alternate universes related to their favorite TV shows or films: to save beloved characters who die, or hook them up with unlikely lovers, or interact with people from entirely different fictional worlds.
TV and movie sci-fi also use the concept a lot. It’s a cheap way to create a different reality, for one thing. Like with the old series Sliders, where a mismatched gang of lost travelers wandered through endless variations of Earth. Or the BBC’s venerable Doctor Who, in which a recent parallel world looked pretty much like this one, with the same bad guys and everything. Or, more “realistically,” the 1998 romantic drama Sliding Doors, where Gwyneth Paltrow catches/misses a train and starts living two lives based on each outcome of that moment.
The many-worlds theory has been great, apparently, for quantum physics. But it’s also helped me a lot with Fox’s ripping yarn Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The people (and Terminators) on this show use time travel like we take the freeway. Summer Glau’s hot-chick Terminator is supposedly sent back to 1999 by humanity’s hero, John Connor, to protect himself and his mom. Then the three of them go forward in time from 1999 to 2007, where they decide to stop the evil Skynet from ever coming into existence (again). Then one of the architects of Skynet is killed by a commando played by Brian Austin Green (who comes back from the future too). But B.A.G. still remembers the exact same future, where Skynet still burns down the world. That’s OK, because, according to many-worlds theory, there’s no paradox. Sweet! But if the whole reason everybody’s jumping around in time is to stop Skynet, and nobody ever sees how the timeline turns out, how are they ever going to know if it worked?
Published: 02/27/2008
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