Secrets of Goth Mountain
Page 67
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Universes away, Elizabeth contemplated strategy with her new friends in the cabin as they packed more supplies and equipment for an extended Cube watch. “Johnny, there must be something more we can do.”
“We are doing it, Elizabeth. Every information exchange we have brings us knowledge that will hopefully allow you to go home someday.”
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but someday isn’t good enough. In my world Goth Mountain, my Johnny and the Tribe are in grave danger and my situation has got to be distracting them, making them vulnerable to the evil of Dark and Fenster and Small Bear. No offense to you, Small Bear.”
“None taken,” said Small Bear. “I’m ready to go back to the Mountain. See you up there.” He hoisted a huge knapsack on his shoulder and left the cabin.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” said Johnny. “Perhaps both the Cube and those you call the People in your world are akin to independent observers in a quantum mechanical sense.”
“You’re losing me again,” objected Elizabeth.
“In observing and interpreting physical phenomena it is logically and physically useful for the observing entity to be independent and immutable relative to what is observed, yet that is inherently impossible when dealing with quantum-scale phenomena. The Cube and unicorns at their whim seem to be able to be both within our universe and able to interact or not interact with it. The Cube is impenetrable most of the time, and you have said that unicorns can pass through ordinary solid matter as though it doesn’t exist.
“I conclude that both the Cube and the unicorns may literally be constructed of matter that is not subject to the ordinary laws of physics as we know them.”
“I agree,” said Mark Goth. “But I object to a multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics on several grounds. First, it would amount to spontaneous creation on an unimaginable scale. Second, how does each entire otherwise identical universe instantaneously find out that one universe has split from another? No required universe-wide transmission of information has ever been detected, faster than light speed or otherwise.
“Finally, even given transmission of information, how does each bit of each universe distinguish between each of the new universes that comes to being at every moment, when they differ only in terms of a single quantum event that has taken place anywhere in the universe? How would each tiny piece of each universe gather and store, and mechanize use of such information, so much information that no universe could contain it? Yet it would have to, otherwise interactions with other universes would be noticed.”
“Perhaps not,” argued Johnny. “Perhaps the entire ensemble of nearly the same universes is detectable only at tiny distances, actually forming the mechanism for quantum uncertainty.”
“That approach still suffers from similar objections. Statistically, there should occur instances when the influence of objects in nearby universes is asymmetric, and objects in this universe would be mysteriously influenced in unexpected ways, but that has never been detected.”
“Perhaps the quantum probability distributions experienced in each universe is precisely the evidence of other universes that you think is missing,” objected Johnny.
“I think those are too regular. Besides, note that a multi-verse model going back only a decade or two does not fit the facts perfectly.”
“No?” asked Johnny.
“No. Unicorns have existed in Elizabeth’s world for many hundreds of years, but not in any of the other universes that the Cube lets us see, or in ours. Multiverse splitting beginning with a common universe only a decade or two ago wouldn’t account for this.”
“True, Dad. I follow and would otherwise agree with your logic, but the multiple universe interpretation still matches our observations best. Combined with the perfect observer concept, it might explain it all. As perfect observers, the unicorns can exist in only one universe, or perhaps in all of them, as the Cube does. As a second perfect observer, the Cube can apparently exist in multiple universes of choice, including the one with unicorns. Maybe it is anchored to their universe somehow due to the presence of the People there.”
“Perhaps, Son. And that line of thought can perhaps be extended to explain psychic phenomena, if over time biological structures can evolve to in a small way interfere with normal physics. But you know that I’ve always favored a transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics, which includes a concept of negative time. Strange as negative time seems, it is a much cleaner and far more conservative concept than one that involves infinities of infinities of universes.”
As the two Goths continued their increasingly abstract discussion, Elizabeth left the Cabin almost unnoticed. Ann followed her out, carrying two huge backpacks. “My Johnny is not quite the same as yours, I take it.”
“I guess I’ve landed in an extremely nerdy universe,” reasoned Elizabeth. “I’m sorry, but I don’t care what the scientific explanation is, I just want to get home. To do that, I need to get back up the Mountain to the Cube; that much I do know.”
“Agreed.” Ann handed Elizabeth one of the backpacks. “We’re re-supplied. I for one don’t plan on leaving that Cube until you’re home. Let’s go. The men can catch up if and when they even notice that we’ve gone.”
Small Bear met them at the inner gate and walked with them up the trail towards the Cube, where Laura and Two Bears already watched and waited.
Elizabeth liked this world where even Small Bear was a good person, but she desperately needed to get back to her own world.
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