h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The way I read it, you won’t be immortal, because you’ll still die through old age. Unless you happen across a universe where they’ve invented a cure for old age. But even that won’t happen, because the extra universe will be one created as you die, so will be exactly the same as the one you ‘left’. In fact, should it work; apart from the fact that you’d discovered there are parallel universes, it’d be a bit boring. You can’t prove anything, so it’s unlikely you’ll be believed, and all it means you get to do is think of new and even more random ways to kill yourself, in order to travel onwards. Immortality isn’t possible through this method.


Of course, I don't study physics But if I'm wrong, a layman's explanation would be appreciated.

Very cool article though

agreed, a good article, but it does not provide a cheap/easy/"try this at home" way of doing anything. how many of us have particle accelerators or giger counters lying about?

(sorry for lack of capital letters, baguette in my other hand)

What I want want to know is that, if you 'survive' in this experiment, do you then go on to a parallel universe where you can go swanning around saying "hey guys, I got shot in the face by a machine gun, but I survived, because of parallel universes!"?

Wouldn't you really only survive if you hapened to be in one of the infinite number of paralell universes where you survived all along? It much more likely that you are in a universe where you die, since there is a much bigger infinite number of them?

Basically, if there's universes where you survive this experiment there must be universes where you die, and someone must experience those universes, and it'll probably be you.

BTW has anyone volunteered yet? What about trying the Schrödinger's cat experiment as well. It won't prove anything, but cats that are either both alive and , or are alive in one universe and in another just sound weird and fun.

correction : I meant cats that are either alive and , or alive in one universe and in another universe.

Good article, by the way.

For some reason the word d e a d isn't showing up in my postings above. Weird.

combattant pour liberte (Free Palestine and Chechnya! Say no to US imperialism!)

keep in mind that parallel universes r created all the time, during the quantum desision of decaying or not a new parallel universe is created, one where you die, one where you dont, and at the moment of creation you go in the one where you survive.....

Schrödinger's cat experiment? Do tell more

I think I remember hearing of it, but not about it, ages ago...

well i believe a brief rundown is:

put a cat inside a box with a nuclear particle (or maybe the particles attached to somethign that can kill the cat if it decays) so theres the 50/50 chance of the particle decaying and killing the cat, but because we cant see it, and both possibilites are being played out in 2 universes - ie. superposition, the cat is both alive and dead in the box at the same time untill you open it and look at it

What was wrong with "either that cat dies or it doesn't"?!

Does it have to be a cat specifically? Could you use a goat?

you can use anything

I guess they thought Schrödinger's Cat had a better ring to it than Schrödinger's Goat...

plus these day anything to do with goats seem a bit suggestive...

Sorry I didn't notice the existence of this conversation until now, meaning that as far as I was concerned, this thread both existed and didn't exist before I observed it...

You're right - you can't really be immortal with this method, but it's like Buy One Get One Free offers. You didn't actually get the extra one for free because you still paid money, whether it was less than you usually would or not. The use of the word 'immortality' was just hype I suppose.

And as for the other questions - who knows? There are many interpretations of the theories of parallel universes, which is itself an interpretation of the quantum theory. This is why the experiment is such a huge risk - we just don't know whether other universes exist, and what their precise nature is if they do.

The mechanics of whether we are in this universe or many universes, or whether we have clones who take our place in other universes, or whether these universes create themselves spontaneously or have always existed - all of these questions - are total unknowns.

Thanks for your interest!

this article is truly fascinating, but one thing simply does not add up here. for all of this to work out, there would have to exist an infinite number of separate paralel universes. Based on the fact that the three dimensional universe which we are able to perceive is said to be limmited, wouldn't it logically follow that an overlapping four dimensional multiverse would similarly have definite boundries? Then again, the universe is currently expanding, and according to some physicists, it will continue growing at an increasing rate. Moreover, who am I to question such hypothesis (its not as if I'm a scientist).
On another note, if this theory were to hold true, one would have to be immortal. Even a terminally ill patient has a chance of living (however slight that chance may be), and by the law of infinity, it will always hold true that in some universe, that person will live. The fact that nobody in our universe has ever lived passed the age of about 125 means nothing, for even if the odds of such a thing happening in our universe were 1/infinity (essentially impossible), the odds that another such universe exists in which such a circumstance occures would be 1/1, 100%.

btw, i'm voluteering to try this experiment, if anyone has all the necassary materials!

I really don't think this the experiment is to be taken seriously but as a textbook theory. Though some idiot in a parallel universe tried this killed himself and in another he did not...only to gain a bit of knowledge that will not make a difference. Ah well what is the big deal. It's like looking into the mirror...the outcome will always be the same and will mimic the same but when you turn your back how do you know it will mimic your perception of WHAT YOU SEE?