Do parallel universes really exist?
by Josh Clark, science.howstuffworks.com
In 1954, a young Princeton University doctoral candidate named Hugh Everett III came up with a radical idea: That there exist parallel universes, exactly like our universe. These universes are all related to ours; indeed, they branch off from ours, and our universe is branched off of others. Within these parallel universes, our wars have had different outcomes than the ones we know. Species that are extinct in our universe have evolved and adapted in others. In other universes, we humans may have become extinct.
[...]
With his Many-Worlds theory, Everett was attempting to answer a rather sticky question related to quantum physics: Why does quantum matter behave erratically? [...] These findings suggested that there are other laws at work in the universe, operating on a deeper level than the one we know.
[... pg 3 ]
When a physicist measures the object, the universe splits into two distinct universes to accommodate each of the possible outcomes. So a scientist in one universe finds that the object has been measured in wave form. The same scientist in the other universe measures the object as a particle. This also explains how one particle can be measured in more than one state.
As unsettling as it may sound, Everett's Many-Worlds interpretation has implications beyond the quantum level. If an action has more than one possible outcome, then -- if Everett's theory is correct -- the universe splits when that action is taken. This holds true even when a person chooses not to take an action.
[...]
[Image Source: reborn.wikia.com -- Parallel Worlds are alternate worlds that are filled with different realities.]
Isn't it amazing that even a single atom exists? A complex world of 'potentiality', unto itself. One constrained by laws, that no legislature can ever revoke ... An unfathomable world fueled by a virtually limitless energy, one that ultimately powers the universe, itself (themselves?)
[Image Source: NTT.com -- Fig. 4. Quantum confinement in a quantum well. (a) STM topographic image and potential profile. (b), (c) LDOS distribution (experiments). (d) Calculated LDOS.]
Isn't it amazing?
Fork in the road (metaphor) -- From Wikipedia
There is a common motif in Russian folk tales, where a vityaz (Russian knight) comes to a fork in the road and sees a menhir with an inscription that reads:
"If you ride to the left, you will lose your horse, if you ride to the right, you will lose your head."
[Image Source: sumitsinha.com -- ‘Starting A Business’ Vs ‘Keeping Your Job And Investing’]
Which road do you choose? ... When neither lead you, to where you want to be?
(PS. that's called: a Conundrum.)
Salvador Dali & Pink Floyd - High Hopes (The Division Bell)
link to clip
Life is typically full of such choices ... ones that set steer your destiny, toward unseen paths that morph and change, and ultimately bring you to some particular 'parallel' slice of reality. To destinations you never thought you'd be ... to some subset of opportunities, cast more with the fog of resignation, than with the fresh-air of optimism -- the more 'the forking' that has taken place ... as our particular 'parallel' {limiting} cases may be.
With some of those 'forks', we have a choice ... with others the choice is simply a foregone conclusion. It's a common tale:
Be born in America? Y N
\
Be born to a family with resources? Y N
/
Get a quality education? Y N
\
Get that college degree? Y N
|
Acquire skills that are in demand? Y N
|
Get the jobs the build a Career track? Y N
|
Have the money to get a Mortgage Loan? Y N
/
Fall in love with a significant other? Y N
\
Get Married and face life's challenges together? Y N
|
Have kids and restart Life's cycle? Y N
/
Go back to school and get that Degree? Y N
|
Reboot that career track, in mid-stream? Y N
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Uproot your life, in pursuit of that career? Y N
|
Pour yourself into a pointless, thankless career? Y N
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One day realize, the road ahead is less than the one behind? Y N
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Wake up one day, and wonder where 'the wonder went'? Y N
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Write a Blog, few will read, and fewer will understand? Y N
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Asking yourself, if that next big choice will be the right one? Y N
|
Yet, as long as we still
have the choice, still have the spring in our mortal coils --
that universal struggle continues, right?
That struggle to find meaning and worth, and hope and joy -- in some rapidly accelerating and shrinking world, that far-too-often seems strangely devoid of such ephemeral things ...
And so our haphazard 'parallel' worlds are individually constructed ... and at times, deconstructed too ...
The Road Not Taken -- From Wikipedia
[...]
"The Road Not Taken" is a narrative and autobiographical poem consisting of four stanzas of iambic tetrameter [...] and is one of [Robert] Frost's most popular works. This poem symbolises that life always gives you two choices. The poem, besides being among the best known, is also one of the most misunderstood.
The final lines "I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference" are often cited as emblematic of America's individualist spirit of adventure, in a reading that assumes they are to be taken literally. This is doubtful: whatever difference the choice might have made, it was not made on the basis of a discerned difference between the two paths that opened up before the traveller. The speaker admits in the second and third stanzas that both paths may be equally worn and equally leaf-covered, and it is only in his future recollection that he will call one of the two roads, the one he took, "less traveled by."
The road not taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken
by Nadzirah Hata, In a Nutshell -- June 10, 2013
You will always have choices in life that are tough, but you can only do one at a time. Frost says that he doubts he will ever get a chance to take the other road, and just like in real life, when you make a decision, you can't always go back and change it. You will also live wondering what the other choice may have brought you.
Wonder well, folks ... and
choose wisely, too. Because when it's all said and done,
Life indeed,
is still amazing! ... and at times,
it's 'un-forking' believable, too.
Is it not? ...
See ya, on the flip-side ... Maybe; ... as our individual {world-traveling} cases, may be.