Masters of the universes

In a parallel universe – beyond the reach of any telescope, accessible only through our imaginations – there exists another version of me, you, and everyone we know. We inhabit a world much like this one. The hallmarks are all there: a planet we call Earth, Lean Cuisines stacked in grocery store freezers, and auto mechanics named Butch who smoke Lucky Strikes and listen to Steely Dan. At first blush, everything seems to be in order, a perfect replica of the reality we wear like clothing.

 

But take a closer look. Your Aunt Sylvia, the one with the Chuck Norris mustache and inexplicable crush on Dwight Eisenhower, is a poker millionaire; she won her fortune in those tournaments they air on ESPN2, sandwiched between Beer League Bowling and the Maxwell House Collegiate Interscholastic All-Psych-Major Women’s Softball Championships. She’s given you half her winnings, which you’ve invested in a business that makes sesame seed bagels shaped like the cast of “Saved By The Bell.”

 

Me? I’m a millionaire, too. I’m the founder and CEO of Bottombook, a social media website on which the only acceptable profile pictures are of peoples’ butts.

 

Here’s the part that’s a real gas. (Pun intended.) If the science is somehow true, then this parallel world – digital derrieres and all – actually exists.

 

I know, it seems farfetched. And it comes with about a thousand caveats. For one, the science of parallel universes is far from proven; lacking direct evidence, the strongest support for their existence is that they’re an essential component of other unproven theories, at the awkward crossroads of science and faith. The ground beneath them, however, isn’t as shaky as you might think. There are few things as exciting as a possibility, and the “multiverse” theory, as it’s known, is rife with them.

 

Somewhere, I’m a rodeo clown named Bingo with the word’s largest collection of antique cookie tins. True story.

 

The subject of alternate universes first caught my attention a couple of years ago, and reading “The Hidden Reality” by Brian Greene just added gasoline to the fire. Greene, a professor at Columbia University, is a physicist and string theorist who has the gift of distilling complex mathematical phenomena into an easily digestible form; in other words, he explains things such that even a relative dummy like me can understand them. The details aren’t important – and besides, there are way too many of them. There are a thousand different ways in which these other realities are possible, most of which require the cognitive ability of a Star Wars-level android to truly comprehend.

 

What’s important is that, if these other worlds do exist, then anything that’s a mathematical possibility, no matter how outlandish or absurd, is a reality, somewhere. These universes are infinite, fulfilling every hope, fear, dream and aspiration of which humankind is capable. That novel you wanted to write? A version of you has written it. The lottery ticket you scratched that was one number away from the jackpot? Elsewhere, it was a winner. Conventional wisdom once held that life was a series of forks in the road; choose the left path, and the right is closed off forever. What the multiverse does is fulfill those unchosen paths, and while we may not see them fulfilled in this reality, there’s something comforting about the thought that, in a sense, every wish comes true.

 

Somewhere, I’m an Oscar-winning actor with a pet ostrich and a house made of Almond Joys. No joke.

 

It’s understandable that Greene would want to devote an entire volume to the subject – it’s fascinating stuff, and I’m probably not doing it half the justice it deserves. But physicists’ ongoing study of duplicate mes and yous begs a question: Who cares? Why is it relevant?

 

In this universe, I attempt an answer.

 

The easy explanation is that researching topics like this unlocks the secrets that make the impossible possible; it wasn’t until Einstein’s special theory of relativity was published in 1905 that scientists developed technology to manipulate light particles, and that eventually led to the first television set. The general public may not care much about the constant speed of light, but take away “Project Runway” and they get feistier than a starving pitbull outside a butcher shop. Science matters.

 

It’s more than that, though. Students are exposed to a variety of topics throughout their academic careers, but reading and math are given the heaviest emphasis, as though a person can achieve fulfillment in life simply by reading Twain and teasing out the value of x. Not that those subjects aren’t vitally important, but look around. Technology reigns. We’ve got gadgets that pump blood through the bodies of people whose hearts are missing; we have telescopes in low-Earth orbit that detect water on planets in galaxies light-years away. Heck, we can use our phones to turn on house lights while we’re getting soused at an Atlantic City gambling table. Any future economy will depend heavily on technology, and those best prepared for it will raise generations that are, at the very least, scientifically literate. That means capturing the attention of children.

 

The multiverse fits the bill quite nicely.

 

Some of us have shelf lives on our imaginations. We spend the bulk of childhood wading through dreams and fantasies, embryonic visions of what we’d like the world to be. Then the hard-headed practicalities of adulthood turn us into pragmatists and cynics. The multiverse theory is a microcosm of one of science’s unique abilities: to resuscitate our capacity to redefine what’s possible. In a parallel world, racial harmony, political unity and world peace are all taken for granted, established principals which guide our greatest civilizations. That was achieved because the people of that world – the other mes, the other yous – imagined it into being. If they were able to make that a reality in their world, we can do the same in this one.

 

Somewhere, I’m laying on a hammock in Puerto Rico next to a bowl of grapes and a dog-eared copy of “Great Expectations.” A contented smile creases my lips. Everything is right with the world, and as a pink-orange sun slips below a line of cyrillas, I sigh and close my eyes. Then a humanoid robot massages my feet while playing “Peaceful Easy Feeling” on an external stereo system shaped like Drew Carey’s head.

 

True story.