An Infinite Number of Yous

This week for many people my age marks the first week of freedom in their young lives, their first university classes, and the first time meeting friends they'll keep for the rest of their lives. Its a very exciting time for us youngsters. But it also gives us the opportunity to think about if things were different. Theres an endless number of things that could be different for us right now, and really for anyone at any point in their life. But your life is the way it is for a reason... or so we think.

In quantum mechanics, everything is based off probabilities of certain situations happening, or not happening. A simple example of this is concept is flipping a coin. When you are about to flip a coin there are two possible outcomes, before you even start. They are heads or tails. Once you flip the coin, you observe one or the other probability occurring, either heads or tails. But what happens to the other probability?  Does it not occur, does it go somewhere else? What exactly happens? 

According to the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, if our universe is infinite, every probability that could occur, DOES occur somewhere in the universe. This can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. In our coin example this would mean that even though you may have seen your coin land on heads, somewhere in the universe the same exact situation played out and it landed on tails. I know its not that easy to visualize.

Think about the word infinity. This basically means there is no end, whatever it is being referenced to goes on forever. So in the case of the universe, this means its spatial and time expanses never end, they goes on forever. If you could see infinitely in every direction it would never stop. In most occurrences in life, which take place within our "infinite universe", there are only a finite number of possible outcomes. Finite would mean there are only a certain number of things, whereas infinite means the list of things that could happen never end. So, in our infinite universe, when there are only a finite number of things that could happen, the finite list will run out before the infinite. Since something has to be filling this space, this means the list of finite things will repeat eventually, but only after every possible outcome has occurred. For our coin example, after you flip heads, somewhere in the infinite universe you flipped tails. 

While trying to explain this concept, which you may still not be getting which is completely understandable (were talking about infinity which is never easy), I have only eluded to our universe being infinite. The other side of the many worlds theory is that there are and infinite number of universes where in each one a different outcome occurs. This is intriguing because in every universe everything could be exactly same except for one small difference. For example in one universe you are a dog and that is the only difference. Or in one universe every person has 5 eyes but everything else is exactly the same. If the many worlds theory is correct, this would mean every one of these possibilities does happen. Every movie you've ever watched, book you've ever read, or even dream you've ever experienced does happen. So Star Wars actually happened, Star Trek will happen, and the Leafs are the defending Stanley Cup Champions. Yes some of these are far fetched but if quantum mechanics is right this is a reality.


This idea can make you feel really small. It essentially says that every good thing you want to happen does happen somewhere, just maybe not to you. To me its humbling. It shows me that nothing in this life is that important, nothing matters at all in the grand scheme of things, unless you make it matter. Everything we do as individuals has no real meaning at all, even as a society. The universe will keep expanding, time will continue on. I don't mean to sound like a defeatist, but my message is this: make sure that whatever you do in life matters to you and you're doing what you enjoy, because when it all comes down to it you're only one of an infinite you's and whatever you do is only important for you. Live life for you and do what makes you happy.