Welcome to the Multiverse!

You may be familiar with the concept of the multiverse, but, just in case you aren’t, I will provide a brief summary of the idea. Essentially, many scientists believe that the shape of space-time is most likely flat, and that it stretches out infinitely. If space-time is flat, and does go on forever, then, at some point, it must start repeating, because there is a set number of ways that particles can be arranged in space and time. This basically means that, if you were to look far enough outside of your own universe, you could see another version of you. Well, actually, you could see infinite versions of yourself. You can sort of think of it as a mirror with infinite layers.

Many of these infinite versions of yourself may be doing the exact same thing that you are doing right now, at the exact same time. Many of them may be doing what you did a few minutes ago, or may be doing what you will do a few minutes from now. Some of them have made choices that, while different from yours, have a relatively small impact on your life, such as choosing to read an article different from this one, or to stop reading this article after the first paragraph. Other versions of you, on the other hand, may have made completely different life-changing decisions. If you aren’t a vegetarian, there may be many versions of you that are, and vice versa. You may be working towards being a teacher, and may be happy with that career choice, but there may be a version or two of you that wants to be an engineer, and is making completely different decisions in order to achieve that end, meeting different people in the process. The possibilities are literally endless.

Now, I should include that this is all theoretical. The concept of infinite universes is still just, well, a concept. We have no way of testing this idea yet. Still, as you can see, it is quite fun to ponder the implications. Essentially, the way I look at the multiverse is through a cloud of wonder. I would love to meet other versions of myself. To ask them what life choices they have made, and if they are satisfied with them. For example, I have decided to be a sociology major, and many of my life choices will be centered around that. I would love to meet versions of myself that decided to pursue a degree in English or history, both things that I considered doing at one point, and to see how their lives are going. On top of that, there would be infinite versions of me that chose those majors, so the possibilities from there would be nearly endless as well. It’s something that interests me a great deal. And, sometimes, you never know how minor decisions will change your life. A version of you that made a different decision on a slightly different issue may have a completely different life.

Far Out, But Still Close to Home

Sometimes I use the concept of the multiverse to make myself feel better when things go wrong. For example, in January, on my first day of classes for my second semester at Longwood, at 8:15am, I started my 30-minute commute to the university. My windows were fogged up, but I assumed that I could make the left turn from the intersection less than a minute from my house just fine. It turns out that I cannot, as, when I turned, I was T-boned by a tractor trailer, and my vehicle was tossed into the grassy median. Luckily, the median prevented my vehicle from entering the other side of the highway, where it likely would have been hit by yet another vehicle going 60 miles an hour. Though I had a panic attack upon realizing what had just happened, and had trouble breathing for a few minutes after the accident, I emerged unharmed, except for a small cut on my hand that bled a relatively small amount. My car was completely totaled. The entire back right side looked like poorly put-together papier-mâché. When the police officer came, he told me that I had been hit by the metal backend of the tractor trailer, which wasn’t loaded up. He told me that, if I had been hit head on, I would have easily died. My mom later reminded me that, if the trailer had been loaded up, it probably would have dragged my vehicle along, crushing it all at the same time. Essentially, I am very lucky to be alive. That day, I got a new vehicle, but had to get a $5,000 loan in order to do so, which I make regular payments on, and keeps me in a job that I don’t really like.

I used the idea of infinite universes to make me feel better about the situation. For one, there are many versions of me that made the decision to roll down the windows before attempting to enter the highway. I envy them. However, there are also many versions of me that died in the accident, and are not around in their reality in order to write an article about how knowing that other versions of them died, and that they have not, makes them feel better. I know that there may be a lot of versions of me that probably cannot afford another vehicle, or who cannot find a decent-paying job, and they probably envy me. The concept of infinite universes, to me, puts a vivid and literal lens on looking at the consequences of one’s actions, and at looking at the possible consequences of other decisions. There may be versions of me that decided to roll down the windows before entering the highway, and were fine on that day, but who may have been involved in an even worse accident a few days later.

This method of looking at other possibilities makes me feel better about the situations that I find myself in. It helps me to realize that my life isn’t always necessarily as bad as it could be, on a level that feels more personal and insightful than simply comparing my life to the lives of others. I feel like this way of thinking is a great utilization of the concept of the multiverse that could help us all. Perhaps you, or infinite versions of you, agree.

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