I wonder.....

[vegan_chick]

does anyone think that there is an alternate universe in which everyone is the same, but differrent? Where there r the same ppl, but every choice we make, the opposite is made in this alternate world? thats kinda confusing, but have you ever wondered, right after you made a decision, what would happen if you made a different decision? Or chose something else?

[Peter Murray]

I've read various stories like that, and both Futurama and Star Trek have used the idea. (And someone wrote a Trek novel called Dark Mirror .)

However, if every decision was different, it wouldn't be that similar to our world. If my parents had decided, instead of getting married, not to keep seeing each other, I wouldn't have been born, so I wouldn't be making the opposite decisions now - and the further back you make these decisions opposite, the less like our world it looks.

[FireWitch]

OOOOOOOOH

Have you ever watched _Sliding Door_? That is the BEST movie and it deals with something like that. The Scottish guy in that movie is pure dead gorgeous (sorry....Scottish moment...my best friend is Scottish)...

[vegan_chick]

arghhhh! that is extremely baffling! what if there are several alternate universes that deal with every possible outcome. That would be rather odd, even for someone like me!!

[Aurora]

... of course I have. ^^ I love having thoughts like that.

Know what I would love? I'd love if... after we died... we were allowed to explore what we COULD have done. ^^ it'd take an eternity.. which is what we want, because every new path opens up more possibilities! ^^

[db_pr]

They put this on TTOGR

[Pop Tart Kitten]

In alternate universes things are the same but different,and sometimes They stay there,to still be here but closer to TimeHeart.Ya know?
That just came out of my mouth?
Those who refuse to serve the powers,become the powers tools,but those who choose to serve the powers,themselves become the powers
Like Lugh the AllCrafted is in Ireland still,only a couple dimensions over. confusing isnt it?

[vegan_chick]

It is rather confusing. But if you read it slowly it makes more sense. But, if you like confusing, try reading it backwards!

[semiramis]

yay quantum theory....

Uh. Most of you probably know this already, but. I thought I'd bring up this one study:

scientists were fiddling with electrons (or some other sub-atomic particle, but I think it was electrons...) and were pushing them through slots, expirimenting with pushing one thru one slot, and two through two dif. slots simultaneously... and then they tried pushing one through the two-slot thingummy, with a 50-50 chance of it going thru either, and the results were that it reacted as though there was actually another particle going thru the other slot, as though reacting, accross the "collapsed chance" barrier (oft. mentioned in the His Dark Materials Series XD), with an alternate version of itself...

I found this rather interesting. And creepy.

(I mean, does anyone else ever get those random little spasms of being illogically annoyed or happy? What if you're reacting to something that happened to a you whose life had taken a slightly diff. course after having made a slightly different choice from one you'd made recently? ..creepy...)

Quantum is odd...

[Wilf]

The easier version of Quantum Theory can be found in Terry Prachett's Pyramids. In a nutshell, it means adding another zero to the costs...
If you do quantum theory, you will waves (and associated equations) untilthey come out your ears. (After spening all your education with waves entering your ears, and possily going striaght through to the other side). You will also be able to solve the Schrodinger equation in less than two lines, and write down the solution to teh differential equation y'' = ny (n being a constant) without thinking. Compared with special relaivity, the maths is harder in quantum, but the thinking is easier.
Hmmm.... me in random ramble mode....

Vaguely back on topic (alternate universes): The trouble is that there exists no known theoretical or practical way of proving the exsistence or non-exsistence of parrallel universes. Linking this in with the second extract from WaW... could Nita and Kit visit some of the alternate universes? Would they meet themselves if they did so? Might they end up in a world where Nita's Mum never caught cancer? I could go on...

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by Wilf:
Linking this in with the second extract from WaW... could Nita and Kit visit some of the alternate universes? Would they meet themselves if they did so? Might they end up in a world where Nita's Mum never caught cancer? I could go on...

Wouldn't that be upsetting, though? After all, there'd be a Nita there too - they could hardly kidnap her and take her home, could they? Nita-2 and Dairine-2 would have something to say about that! (Harry-2 and Betty-2 wouldn't be happy either, but they can't stop them.)

[vegan_chick]

Oh lord, thank you even though I don't know what the heck is going on. (I tend to get lost easily) but about the Nita-2s and Dairine-2s, wouldn't there be 3s and 4s and 5s and such, as ther are several, if not infinite (sp?) possibilities.

[Wilf]

If the general definition of how alternate universes are formed, then there is indeed and infinate number of alternatre universes.
[Maths aside]: the question, which infinity? I personally would guess that the numberof universes is countable, but that's an instinct. (For a bonus point: the number of infities is known to be infinate - but which one? Answers to any reputable peer-reviewed maths journal...)[/Maths aside]
Another thought: couldn't Nita collect together all the other Nitas, and use the combined wizardly and brain power?

[Gryphon]

If there were an infinate number of alternate universes of some form or another (which may or may not exist. We have no way to prove it true or false), you'd have to consider that the majority (hah! The majority of infinite) probably wouldn't have you in it. Well, you kind of can't have a 'majority of infinite.' Because, well, infinite's minority is infinite, am I right? Can't really divide infinite at all. If you're considering all of the different outcomes in your life, you couldn't think of just what happened in your life alone. You might've not existed at all. Earth might not have existed even. Or at least how it is. If you look at the Big Bang Thoerym what if none of that happened? On a more local note, the human race doesn't have to exist even. Let's say that some kind of volcano erupted right where all of the monkeys were clustered. Hey, they're dead now! That alternate universe won't have humans anytime soon. Or at least not ones that evolve from monkeys. Hey, what if we weren't the most intelligent mamal? Assuming that we are, mind.

It could go on and on. The universe could be the exact same, all the way up to the point in time when you were born. Choices...

[semiramis]

mmm... Theoretically, the "alternate universes" all branch off from each other, and if you follow that far back enough, the beginning of the universe would have to be the beginning of all of them, but then if you go back up again... it's like a nightmare pascal's triangle, isn't it? Or fibonacci (sp?) gone mad. Or my Algebra I teacher's hair tamed down slightly.

So does that constitute infinity? Surely, if you go back and count all the possible "splitting points," all the possible choices in the history of the unverse, and then multiply each choice by its number of possible outcomes... surely that's a finite number, right? Uncountable, for sure, and most certainly far too large to have any other name, or even to be within the range of human comprehension... but is that what infinity truly is?