13 ms·

Universe Splitter

218 points by hexomancer 5y ago

sam_goody 5y ago
I have been using this for awhile, and am beginning to suspect that it is a hoax, and it is not really being sent to a lab in Geneva. (Looks at source code, finds HKCD random function..)
- operator-name 5y ago
  The unofficial Android app does an api call: https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial/blob/bcc2496135c2dda4ca26f03eff0a642117f07fbe/main.qml#L79 https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial/blo...
  - sam_goody 5y ago
    Ahah! The API is sending a request to Canberra, Australia! I guess that proves that in the alternate universe, Geneva is in Australia! BTW, if you are into this sort of thing, I got this HDMI cable that lets you connect to a monitor on the "other side": https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00KY2NKCO/ https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00KY2NKCO/ :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aj7 5y ago
  Heh, heh. But of course.
smoyer 5y ago
If the single photon simultaneously bounces off the partially-silvered mirror and goes through it, you're not going to get an answer to a binary question from this experimental set-up.
- jonhohle 5y ago
  It doesn’t matter since neither event is connected to the outcome of the test anyway. The user could have chosen the opposite fields for the answers (different universe), or another infinite number of split events prior to using the app, one of which is certainly that the app is a joke.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  According to the MWI (which is not "prevailing quantum theory") all outcomes of QM experiments are realized, but the experimental apparatus and the rest of the macro world around it become entangled with a particular outcome, and thus unable to perceive the other outcomes. So after every quantum experiment you get N copies of the world, one in which outcome A has happened, one in which B has happened, one in which outcome C has happened etc, and each of these evolves divergently from there on. Of course, there are trillions of trillions of trillions of "quantum experiments" happening in our immediate surrounding every second, so any one experiment in particular is not that important, but it helps to isolate. So, instead of taking a decision, you use the app to rest easy that somewhere out there in the universal wave function, there is a copy of you that has taken the opposite decision.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    This sounds like one of those ideas that's mathematically very pure but sort of nonsensical otherwise. Basically there are an ~infinite number of universes being created every 1 'units of time' where that unit is ~0. IDK, I guess the whole speed of light thing is really silly too in a way, but that's provably true. This just feels really nuts. I guess it's like... where do all of these universes live? I get that our universe expands into whatever, but that seems trivial compared to a theory where every single quantum action leads to a new universe.
    - criddell 5y ago
      > where do all of these universes live? If you think Max Tegmark is right, then the universe is just mathematics and space itself is a mathematical structure. Is there a limit on how many mathematical structures can exist?
songeater 5y ago
Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortalit...
- Sander_Marechal 5y ago
  I've read a terrifying short story about that once. It was about a man that never died. The universe just grew ever more unlikely and absurd around him due to quantum immortality. Edit: Found it. "Divided by infinity": https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/ https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    In "Ilium/Olympos" by Dan Simmons, the post-human society is riddled with quantum magic. Achilles has had his future narrowed down to two possibilities: dying at a specific time after being shot in the heel by an arrow shot by Paris, or dying of old age in bed.
  - shagie 5y ago
    There's also All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven - https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v27n03_1968-10/page/n31/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v27n03_1968-10/page/n31/m...
  - k__ 5y ago
    Interesting. The idea if quantum immortality was one of the first things I thought when I read about multiple universes. I never did research on it an it was just a week ago that I heard this was "a thing" but it wasn't a sound theory, for all the reasons that wiki article mentions. I guess, I wanted to live with the thought that it was possible, that's why I never researched about it. Thanks for the link, I imagined that my life would become like in the story too, lol.
    - cowvin 5y ago
      Hah same here. I always imagined that it would be crazy if people always happened to survive in the universes they inhabited.
lionheart 5y ago
There’s a short story out there about a device that can actually do this and then let you stay in contact with your alternate self for a while to see how things turn out. Fascinating stuff.
- asicsp 5y ago
  IIRC, Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang had one like that.
  - ExtraE 5y ago
    Yep. Ted Chaing is a great author. https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freedom-b5ab45cae2a5 https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freed...
- ekidd 5y ago
  There's another short story out there which assumes that when you die in one branched universe, you survive in another. So in your subjective experience, you always survive, no matter how low the chances. But eventually your survival requires stranger and stranger events to occur. After a thousand years, your subjective experience becomes utterly implausible, and yet there you are. But you may not like the universe in which you survive that long. Which is too bad, because you can't subjectively die. I'll probably remember the title tomorrow, if nobody beats me to it. It was a fairly disturbing story.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    I think there was also a concept for scientifically testing the MWI, but that only works subjectively. You essentially play Russian roulette, preferably based on the outcomes of a quantum measurement. Repeat until you either die or are satisfied that the world you are in is so implausible as to be impossible unless indeed every outcome is realised. Say, fire an electron at a double slit with a detector in one of the slits, and kill yourself if the particle is not detected. Run the experiment 10,000 times, or 100,000,000 times - one copy of you will eventually be satisfied that in any probabilistic interpretation of QM this is not plausible, and all the other copies will be dead. This works because the MWI predicts that any outcome that has non-0 probability according to the Born rule will be guaranteed to happen (it just "happens less" by some hard to define metric). Personally I believe the entire notion is absurd, and that this type of thought experiment makes it clear, but still some like to be contrary.
omnicognate 5y ago
Fun idea, but "according to scientists" and "according to prevailing quantum theory" are questionable. The many worlds interpretation isn't as mainstream as this implies (and many non-physicists think). Personally I don't think it makes any sense at all, although I have a mere batchelor's degree in physics so I'm not particularly well qualified to judge. I've never had a satisfactory answer to the simple emperor's new clothes question, which requires no knowledge of QM to ask, "If every outcome happens, in what sense is one outcome more probable than another?" Because it is (experimentally, based on repeat trials), and QM furnishes us with the probabilities. This is sometimes stated as "How do you get the Born rule?" but it's a simple and obvious question as soon as any sort of multiverse is proposed. I'm aware of the attempts to answer the question using decision theory but while they produce the right numbers they fail to provide a convincing justification for or interpretation of them (vs the simple, experimentally falsifiable frequentist view "if you repeat the experiment you'll see the frequencies approach these probabilities").
- Closi 5y ago
  > Fun idea, but "according to scientists" and "according to prevailing quantum theory" are questionable. Well it is certainly up there in terms of quantum theory along with the Copenhagen interpretation, and some quantum physicists definitely believe this, so considering it is a joke app and mostly a thought experiment I think we can say these statements are accurate enough. > I've never had a satisfactory answer to the simple emperor's new clothes question, which requires no knowledge of QM to ask, "If every outcome happens, in what sense is one outcome more probable than another?" I've never had a satisfactory answer to how a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time with the competing Copenhagen interpretation - however I will leave this debate to researchers in quantum mechanics who understand the maths of quantum physics better than my knowledge of quantum dead cats.
- beecafe 5y ago
  One outcome being more probable than another in MW can be interpreted as that outcome being more likely to have occurred in your past. That is also what the frequentist example is measuring, not which outcome is more likely but which outcome is more likely to be in your history. There is also Quantum Bayseianism in which an outcome being more likely is due to that state being better at copying itself to neighboring states. In all interpretations (including Copenhagen) the mapping from the unobservable wavefunction is taken as axiom (well, one could argue that Relational QM/Transactional interpretation avoids this, but just adds another axiom).
tazjin 5y ago
It seems like retaining the information about all possible universes is kind of nonsensical; the volume of data is just too large. If we assume that the universe is deterministic inside of itself except for quantum decisions, it seems reasonable to me that a structure on the outside of this universe would perform something like a Monte Carlo tree search (assuming that there is a "success condition" for a universe), and branches are only explored to some depth before being discarded. You could then - if you really had to - backtrack to an earlier known state and start exploring again. In my general view, it's also likely that consciousness is only projected into branches once it's sufficiently established that they're reasonable to follow (I think consciousness might be expensive). Some random ranting ...
- imglorp 5y ago
  Human intuition has been completely inconsistent with observed reality since relativity and QM were conceived. We should use other means to evaluate the Many Worlds idea.
  - sdenton4 5y ago
    Two questions I've long had about many worlds: 1) Where is all of the mass/energy coming from? Why is it ok to throw all conservation laws out the window and double the universe whenever two quanta get too close to one another? 2) What's up with locality? Does the spilt somehow radiate outwards from the splitting event at the speed of light? Or do we end up with an instantaneous non-local forking of the universe?
    - imglorp 5y ago
      Just an observation here. Our experience is within spacetime, but some discussions indicate there are processes outside of spacetime. Some say dark energy, for example, is the expansion of spacetime and not the motions of objects inside it. Maybe MW is not operating inside either, while conservation and locality are.
    - sdenton4 5y ago
      A little bit of googling reveals that I am not the only person to have this question. To summarize some answers: a) Energy is conserved by anyone performing an actual observation, therefore energy is conserved. (I suppose this is the 'shut up and calculate' answer.) b) MWI worlds are actually entirely separate non-interacting universes that just happen to have the exact same history up to the moment of 'divergence.' Therefore energy is conserved. (But why does world B exist in the first place, waiting around for this specific point of divergence? Are there just so many universes lying around that we're guaranteed to be able to find two that reflect both sides of a given coin flip? Or are the many-worlds realizable as the 'closure' of events from any given world-line?) But I suppose all of this points at MWI being internally consistent but deeply unsatisfying. Any attempt to chase implications puts you in 'we can't answer why' territory.
LinAGKar 5y ago
This only works if the many-worlds-interpretation is true, which has not been confirmed
- nkrisc 5y ago
  And if we’re in one of the universes where it is true.
  - ravi-delia 5y ago
    This is a common misconception, so if you're just joking I'll prepare myself to be wooshed in the hopes it helps someone else reading this. There is a concept of many universes which permits slightly differing laws of physics (actually different fundamental constants), but many worlds isn't that one. Many Worlds just says that quantum wavefunctions don't collapse. It doesn't posit any "universe" that the Copenhagen interpretation doesn't allow, it just lets them exist side by side.
    - nkrisc 5y ago
      It was a joke but your comment was interesting nonetheless.
      - medstrom 5y ago
        You sound like you'd be interested in Max Tegmark's "Our Mathematical Universe". There are probably multiple levels of multiverses, and in our local "stack" we have 4, where the Many Worlds mechanism is sitting on level 3. Some don't have this level 3, but may have fewer or more levels, using mechanisms foreign to this multiverse, depending on their laws of physics.
- beecafe 5y ago
  It's not possible to distinguish between many worlds or any other interpretation, so it will never will be confirmed (nor will the Copenhagen interpretation). The only ones that can be confirmed are the "objective collapse" theories, as they produce very slightly different predictions than normal QM.
ossyrial 5y ago
Heh, I made something just like it, https://slitdecision.com/ https://slitdecision.com/ Disclaimer: I have no background in physics at all. I saw this universe splitter and read "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" (Science-Fiction novella by Ted Chiang - the one mentioned in here), and thought hey that's fun.
- interleave 5y ago
  Nice one! Back in 2012 I built the (now defunct) Freakonomics Experiments site[^1] that used had the same A vs. B premise using John Walker's HotBits[^2] from Switzerland. In case of interest, Steven Levitt published their - albeit single-Universal - findings in "Heads or Tails: The Impact of a Coin Toss on Major Life Decisions and Subsequent Happiness"[^3] [1]: https://www.freakonomicsexperiments.com/home/faqs/ https://www.freakonomicsexperiments.com/home/faqs/ [2]: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/how3.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/how3.html [3]: https://academic.oup.com/restud/advance-article/doi/10.1093/restud/rdaa016/5834495 https://academic.oup.com/restud/advance-article/doi/10.1093/...
denton-scratch 5y ago
This looks like a "quantum" coin-tossing machine. I fail to see the point, even if it is connected to some quantum device; it won't make any difference to me, whether my decision is made on a coin-toss or a wave-function collapse. I can't imagine anyone using this app more than once.
inetsee 5y ago
Where's the Universe where there's an Android version of this app?
- tasha0663 5y ago
  I'm in it. Are you? Is it Berenstein or Berenstain?
- operator-name 5y ago
  You can use the unofficial Android app (https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial) or website another commenter made (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500119)
aj7 5y ago
This is baloney. The photon’s choice and your choice make 4 “universes.”
- simonh 5y ago
  The idea is you make the choice decided by the photon. If you don't use the device according to the instructions, any resulting timeline disruption is on you.
tiborsaas 5y ago
As a pathologic over-thinker, I need a Universe merger app, any suggestions? :)
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  As much as I've read about the universe splitting theory never hear heard of a many worlds "merge"
- gfody 5y ago
  this could be a writing prompt template. finding a way to hold two seemingly contradictory beliefs simultaneously is a solid exercise in creative thinking.
karamanolev 5y ago
On that topic, I can highly recommend a Sci-Fi novella called "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" by Ted Chiang (the movie Arrival is based on one of his other novels). Concerns a device that also splits the universe, but allows a limited amount of information transfer between the two splits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Is_the_Dizziness_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Is_the_Dizziness_of_Fr...
- ExtraE 5y ago
  Ted Chiang is a great author. Link to the story: https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freedom-b5ab45cae2a5 https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freed...
realYitzi 5y ago
Just my luck to be in the universe where I have an Android and the app is only for iPhone :(
- gorkish 5y ago
  It's not really a problem. I went ahead and split the universe for you. Between options A and B, you are to select option B.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- josu 5y ago
  You are in the correct universe: https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial
- pkage 5y ago
  There is an official Android app[0], it's linked on the developer's main page[1]—but weirdly enough not on the homepage. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Aerfish.UniverseSplitter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Aerfish.Un... [1] https://www.aerfish.com/ https://www.aerfish.com/
verytrivial 5y ago
This is my main data backup app. I sleep soundly knowing that after a total HDD crash my data is still safe and sound on a different timeline.
- layer8 5y ago
  I believe that works just as well without the app.
  - verytrivial 5y ago
    You're right and now I realize I must look rather silly. Thankfully there's a timeline where I saved my $1.99.
jdefelice 5y ago
First time I've came across the Universe Splitter was from This American Life with a good layman explanation. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/691/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/691/transcript
coliveira 5y ago
The "split universes" is the new science fiction that took the world by storm. It is an unproven hypothesis that satisfies the psychological needs of people who want to dream of a world that behaves according to their wishes.
- lnanek2 5y ago
  Most likely true, but that doesn't mean it is useless. Adherents to the split universe religi...er...theory might be more content with their lives, experience less anxiety, etc..
  - coliveira 5y ago
    Exactly like in any other religion...
- overgard 5y ago
  My understanding is that the reason why the multiverse hypothesis (Everett interpretation) is popular with physicists is it simplifies the equations without losing predictive power. They actually have to add terms for the Copenhagen interpretation. I admittedly don't know the math well, but I think suggesting that it satisfies psychological needs is not generally accurate -- if anything, I think the average person finds the idea uncomfortable. Rather, it has legitimate explanatory and predictive power.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    I hate when Occam's razor is applied to non-scientific domains, but this is clearly a scientific domain, and it applies here - multiverse theory is the simpler of the two explanations.
    - coliveira 5y ago
      Occam's razor is not a law. It is just a heuristic to consider scientific hypothesis. If you believe something just because of Occam's razor (without any other evidence) I would say this is not very scientific.
CollinEMac 5y ago
So this is a $1.99 coin flipper?
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Yes.
bsedlm 5y ago
> Within seconds, Universe Splitter© will receive the experiment's result and tell you which of the two universes you're in, and therefore which action to take if this thing is making my choices for me, then why not skip "the middle man" i.e. me? I sense a rising humanity motion (like rationalism, or the englightnement or whaterver) towards letting the algorithms make all of our choices. The new absolute monarch is the Algorithm. The Kings are dead, long live the algorithms!? disclaimer: as tha website is not serious but it does pretend to be, my own comment is also not entirely serious. Often difficult topics are better expressed through fiction (or partial fiction; fiction right now but maybe not later)
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  or just use /s on things that are going to make a lot of people scratch their head and say "wtf?"
RistrettoMike 5y ago
This website, the app's visual design, and that old plastic-chromed iPhone all harken back to a simpler time when there were funny one-off apps just for the hell of it. The time of $1.99 quantum splitters, $0.99 iBeer, and $1.99 Lightsaber apps is long gone. Most of those apps didn't really do anything all that amazing, but looking back on it I think I miss when app stores were flush with "we could use the hardware to do this" rather than "we could get in-app purchases and subscriptions like this" Not that there wasn't monetization as a goal back then, but just that there was a lot of weird paradigms being experimented on where we now have a solidly 10-year norm instead.
- brudgers 5y ago
  That there-was-a-time was the-brief-moment-when the iPhone app store was a folk art medium. Popular folk art is dangerous. So a bureaucracy was built.
  - dTal 5y ago
    Deliberate or not, the proprietors of commercial computing platforms do display a disturbingly consistent tendency to segregate their customers into "users" and "developers", to the harm of all. Program or be programmed!
- ggasp 5y ago
  I bought this App when was mentioned by Sean Carroll in one of his talks/podcast about quantum computing. And because of that, I really thought that they did something that was founded in quantum physics. Not that it was really important, but it was cool to say "see, now it's contacting LHC to shot another photon The only think that I'm sorry about is that with every change of iPhone I've lost the track of what Universe I am!
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    Clearly, you are in the universe where a new iPhone was released.
- 5y ago
Taniwha 5y ago
Surely this is what happens to ALL internet packets in room 641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A downloading any app (much less using it) results in billions of worlds .....
mcguire 5y ago
Sean Carroll's Royal Institution lecture discussing the many worlds interpretation and using a similar app: https://youtu.be/5hVmeOCJjOU https://youtu.be/5hVmeOCJjOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5FYrOthvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5FYrOthvE
habitmelon 5y ago
Reminds me of post on taking both sides of the decision using a qubit: https://tobilehman.com/posts/qubits-multiverse/ https://tobilehman.com/posts/qubits-multiverse/
Angostura 5y ago
I've just bought this because I've never seen it before and it made both me and the wife laugh out loud.
robbomacrae 5y ago
How about a RealityOS with duplicate copies ready to be split. When a user faces an A/B options, realities 2, 3, and 4 can go ahead and execute A, B, and cancel so that when the user makes their choice the winning reality is put in focus and the diffs copied to the rest. You could even hover over a button and watch where it ends up. Like pre-fetching from browsers. Or when a debugger hits a break point reality 2 can proceed with the execution until you are done investigating. It could even act like a RAID backup in case a random bit flip causes one reality to crash. Alas it would be quite wasteful to spend watts on hypotheticals...
- danielsokil 5y ago
  Welcome to cryptocurrency mining!

218 points by hexomancer 5y ago

I have been using this for awhile, and am beginning to suspect that it is a hoax, and it is not really being sent to a lab in Geneva. (Looks at source code, finds HKCD random function..)

operator-name 5y ago
The unofficial Android app does an api call: https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial/blob/bcc2496135c2dda4ca26f03eff0a642117f07fbe/main.qml#L79 https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial/blo...
- sam_goody 5y ago
  Ahah! The API is sending a request to Canberra, Australia! I guess that proves that in the alternate universe, Geneva is in Australia! BTW, if you are into this sort of thing, I got this HDMI cable that lets you connect to a monitor on the "other side": https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00KY2NKCO/ https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00KY2NKCO/ :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aj7 5y ago
Heh, heh. But of course.

smoyer 5y ago

If the single photon simultaneously bounces off the partially-silvered mirror and goes through it, you're not going to get an answer to a binary question from this experimental set-up.

jonhohle 5y ago
It doesn’t matter since neither event is connected to the outcome of the test anyway. The user could have chosen the opposite fields for the answers (different universe), or another infinite number of split events prior to using the app, one of which is certainly that the app is a joke.
tsimionescu 5y ago
According to the MWI (which is not "prevailing quantum theory") all outcomes of QM experiments are realized, but the experimental apparatus and the rest of the macro world around it become entangled with a particular outcome, and thus unable to perceive the other outcomes. So after every quantum experiment you get N copies of the world, one in which outcome A has happened, one in which B has happened, one in which outcome C has happened etc, and each of these evolves divergently from there on. Of course, there are trillions of trillions of trillions of "quantum experiments" happening in our immediate surrounding every second, so any one experiment in particular is not that important, but it helps to isolate. So, instead of taking a decision, you use the app to rest easy that somewhere out there in the universal wave function, there is a copy of you that has taken the opposite decision.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  This sounds like one of those ideas that's mathematically very pure but sort of nonsensical otherwise. Basically there are an ~infinite number of universes being created every 1 'units of time' where that unit is ~0. IDK, I guess the whole speed of light thing is really silly too in a way, but that's provably true. This just feels really nuts. I guess it's like... where do all of these universes live? I get that our universe expands into whatever, but that seems trivial compared to a theory where every single quantum action leads to a new universe.
  - criddell 5y ago
    > where do all of these universes live? If you think Max Tegmark is right, then the universe is just mathematics and space itself is a mathematical structure. Is there a limit on how many mathematical structures can exist?

songeater 5y ago

Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortalit...

Sander_Marechal 5y ago
I've read a terrifying short story about that once. It was about a man that never died. The universe just grew ever more unlikely and absurd around him due to quantum immortality. Edit: Found it. "Divided by infinity": https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/ https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/
- saalweachter 5y ago
  In "Ilium/Olympos" by Dan Simmons, the post-human society is riddled with quantum magic. Achilles has had his future narrowed down to two possibilities: dying at a specific time after being shot in the heel by an arrow shot by Paris, or dying of old age in bed.
- shagie 5y ago
  There's also All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven - https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v27n03_1968-10/page/n31/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v27n03_1968-10/page/n31/m...
- k__ 5y ago
  Interesting. The idea if quantum immortality was one of the first things I thought when I read about multiple universes. I never did research on it an it was just a week ago that I heard this was "a thing" but it wasn't a sound theory, for all the reasons that wiki article mentions. I guess, I wanted to live with the thought that it was possible, that's why I never researched about it. Thanks for the link, I imagined that my life would become like in the story too, lol.
  - cowvin 5y ago
    Hah same here. I always imagined that it would be crazy if people always happened to survive in the universes they inhabited.

lionheart 5y ago

There’s a short story out there about a device that can actually do this and then let you stay in contact with your alternate self for a while to see how things turn out. Fascinating stuff.

asicsp 5y ago
IIRC, Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang had one like that.
- ExtraE 5y ago
  Yep. Ted Chaing is a great author. https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freedom-b5ab45cae2a5 https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freed...
ekidd 5y ago
There's another short story out there which assumes that when you die in one branched universe, you survive in another. So in your subjective experience, you always survive, no matter how low the chances. But eventually your survival requires stranger and stranger events to occur. After a thousand years, your subjective experience becomes utterly implausible, and yet there you are. But you may not like the universe in which you survive that long. Which is too bad, because you can't subjectively die. I'll probably remember the title tomorrow, if nobody beats me to it. It was a fairly disturbing story.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  I think there was also a concept for scientifically testing the MWI, but that only works subjectively. You essentially play Russian roulette, preferably based on the outcomes of a quantum measurement. Repeat until you either die or are satisfied that the world you are in is so implausible as to be impossible unless indeed every outcome is realised. Say, fire an electron at a double slit with a detector in one of the slits, and kill yourself if the particle is not detected. Run the experiment 10,000 times, or 100,000,000 times - one copy of you will eventually be satisfied that in any probabilistic interpretation of QM this is not plausible, and all the other copies will be dead. This works because the MWI predicts that any outcome that has non-0 probability according to the Born rule will be guaranteed to happen (it just "happens less" by some hard to define metric). Personally I believe the entire notion is absurd, and that this type of thought experiment makes it clear, but still some like to be contrary.

omnicognate 5y ago

Fun idea, but "according to scientists" and "according to prevailing quantum theory" are questionable. The many worlds interpretation isn't as mainstream as this implies (and many non-physicists think). Personally I don't think it makes any sense at all, although I have a mere batchelor's degree in physics so I'm not particularly well qualified to judge. I've never had a satisfactory answer to the simple emperor's new clothes question, which requires no knowledge of QM to ask, "If every outcome happens, in what sense is one outcome more probable than another?" Because it is (experimentally, based on repeat trials), and QM furnishes us with the probabilities. This is sometimes stated as "How do you get the Born rule?" but it's a simple and obvious question as soon as any sort of multiverse is proposed. I'm aware of the attempts to answer the question using decision theory but while they produce the right numbers they fail to provide a convincing justification for or interpretation of them (vs the simple, experimentally falsifiable frequentist view "if you repeat the experiment you'll see the frequencies approach these probabilities").

Closi 5y ago
> Fun idea, but "according to scientists" and "according to prevailing quantum theory" are questionable. Well it is certainly up there in terms of quantum theory along with the Copenhagen interpretation, and some quantum physicists definitely believe this, so considering it is a joke app and mostly a thought experiment I think we can say these statements are accurate enough. > I've never had a satisfactory answer to the simple emperor's new clothes question, which requires no knowledge of QM to ask, "If every outcome happens, in what sense is one outcome more probable than another?" I've never had a satisfactory answer to how a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time with the competing Copenhagen interpretation - however I will leave this debate to researchers in quantum mechanics who understand the maths of quantum physics better than my knowledge of quantum dead cats.
beecafe 5y ago
One outcome being more probable than another in MW can be interpreted as that outcome being more likely to have occurred in your past. That is also what the frequentist example is measuring, not which outcome is more likely but which outcome is more likely to be in your history. There is also Quantum Bayseianism in which an outcome being more likely is due to that state being better at copying itself to neighboring states. In all interpretations (including Copenhagen) the mapping from the unobservable wavefunction is taken as axiom (well, one could argue that Relational QM/Transactional interpretation avoids this, but just adds another axiom).

tazjin 5y ago

It seems like retaining the information about all possible universes is kind of nonsensical; the volume of data is just too large. If we assume that the universe is deterministic inside of itself except for quantum decisions, it seems reasonable to me that a structure on the outside of this universe would perform something like a Monte Carlo tree search (assuming that there is a "success condition" for a universe), and branches are only explored to some depth before being discarded. You could then - if you really had to - backtrack to an earlier known state and start exploring again. In my general view, it's also likely that consciousness is only projected into branches once it's sufficiently established that they're reasonable to follow (I think consciousness might be expensive). Some random ranting ...

imglorp 5y ago
Human intuition has been completely inconsistent with observed reality since relativity and QM were conceived. We should use other means to evaluate the Many Worlds idea.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  Two questions I've long had about many worlds: 1) Where is all of the mass/energy coming from? Why is it ok to throw all conservation laws out the window and double the universe whenever two quanta get too close to one another? 2) What's up with locality? Does the spilt somehow radiate outwards from the splitting event at the speed of light? Or do we end up with an instantaneous non-local forking of the universe?
  - imglorp 5y ago
    Just an observation here. Our experience is within spacetime, but some discussions indicate there are processes outside of spacetime. Some say dark energy, for example, is the expansion of spacetime and not the motions of objects inside it. Maybe MW is not operating inside either, while conservation and locality are.
  - sdenton4 5y ago
    A little bit of googling reveals that I am not the only person to have this question. To summarize some answers: a) Energy is conserved by anyone performing an actual observation, therefore energy is conserved. (I suppose this is the 'shut up and calculate' answer.) b) MWI worlds are actually entirely separate non-interacting universes that just happen to have the exact same history up to the moment of 'divergence.' Therefore energy is conserved. (But why does world B exist in the first place, waiting around for this specific point of divergence? Are there just so many universes lying around that we're guaranteed to be able to find two that reflect both sides of a given coin flip? Or are the many-worlds realizable as the 'closure' of events from any given world-line?) But I suppose all of this points at MWI being internally consistent but deeply unsatisfying. Any attempt to chase implications puts you in 'we can't answer why' territory.

LinAGKar 5y ago

This only works if the many-worlds-interpretation is true, which has not been confirmed

nkrisc 5y ago
And if we’re in one of the universes where it is true.
- ravi-delia 5y ago
  This is a common misconception, so if you're just joking I'll prepare myself to be wooshed in the hopes it helps someone else reading this. There is a concept of many universes which permits slightly differing laws of physics (actually different fundamental constants), but many worlds isn't that one. Many Worlds just says that quantum wavefunctions don't collapse. It doesn't posit any "universe" that the Copenhagen interpretation doesn't allow, it just lets them exist side by side.
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    It was a joke but your comment was interesting nonetheless.
    - medstrom 5y ago
      You sound like you'd be interested in Max Tegmark's "Our Mathematical Universe". There are probably multiple levels of multiverses, and in our local "stack" we have 4, where the Many Worlds mechanism is sitting on level 3. Some don't have this level 3, but may have fewer or more levels, using mechanisms foreign to this multiverse, depending on their laws of physics.
beecafe 5y ago
It's not possible to distinguish between many worlds or any other interpretation, so it will never will be confirmed (nor will the Copenhagen interpretation). The only ones that can be confirmed are the "objective collapse" theories, as they produce very slightly different predictions than normal QM.

ossyrial 5y ago

Heh, I made something just like it, https://slitdecision.com/ https://slitdecision.com/ Disclaimer: I have no background in physics at all. I saw this universe splitter and read "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" (Science-Fiction novella by Ted Chiang - the one mentioned in here), and thought hey that's fun.

interleave 5y ago
Nice one! Back in 2012 I built the (now defunct) Freakonomics Experiments site[^1] that used had the same A vs. B premise using John Walker's HotBits[^2] from Switzerland. In case of interest, Steven Levitt published their - albeit single-Universal - findings in "Heads or Tails: The Impact of a Coin Toss on Major Life Decisions and Subsequent Happiness"[^3] [1]: https://www.freakonomicsexperiments.com/home/faqs/ https://www.freakonomicsexperiments.com/home/faqs/ [2]: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/how3.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/how3.html [3]: https://academic.oup.com/restud/advance-article/doi/10.1093/restud/rdaa016/5834495 https://academic.oup.com/restud/advance-article/doi/10.1093/...

denton-scratch 5y ago

This looks like a "quantum" coin-tossing machine. I fail to see the point, even if it is connected to some quantum device; it won't make any difference to me, whether my decision is made on a coin-toss or a wave-function collapse. I can't imagine anyone using this app more than once.

inetsee 5y ago

Where's the Universe where there's an Android version of this app?

tasha0663 5y ago
I'm in it. Are you? Is it Berenstein or Berenstain?
operator-name 5y ago
You can use the unofficial Android app (https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial) or website another commenter made (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500119)

aj7 5y ago

This is baloney. The photon’s choice and your choice make 4 “universes.”

simonh 5y ago
The idea is you make the choice decided by the photon. If you don't use the device according to the instructions, any resulting timeline disruption is on you.

tiborsaas 5y ago

As a pathologic over-thinker, I need a Universe merger app, any suggestions? :)

stjohnswarts 5y ago
As much as I've read about the universe splitting theory never hear heard of a many worlds "merge"
gfody 5y ago
this could be a writing prompt template. finding a way to hold two seemingly contradictory beliefs simultaneously is a solid exercise in creative thinking.

karamanolev 5y ago

On that topic, I can highly recommend a Sci-Fi novella called "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" by Ted Chiang (the movie Arrival is based on one of his other novels). Concerns a device that also splits the universe, but allows a limited amount of information transfer between the two splits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Is_the_Dizziness_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Is_the_Dizziness_of_Fr...

ExtraE 5y ago
Ted Chiang is a great author. Link to the story: https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freedom-b5ab45cae2a5 https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freed...

realYitzi 5y ago

Just my luck to be in the universe where I have an Android and the app is only for iPhone :(

gorkish 5y ago
It's not really a problem. I went ahead and split the universe for you. Between options A and B, you are to select option B.
deleted 5y ago
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josu 5y ago
You are in the correct universe: https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial https://github.com/tomicooler/UniverseSplitterUnofficial
pkage 5y ago
There is an official Android app[0], it's linked on the developer's main page[1]—but weirdly enough not on the homepage. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Aerfish.UniverseSplitter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Aerfish.Un... [1] https://www.aerfish.com/ https://www.aerfish.com/

verytrivial 5y ago

This is my main data backup app. I sleep soundly knowing that after a total HDD crash my data is still safe and sound on a different timeline.

layer8 5y ago
I believe that works just as well without the app.
- verytrivial 5y ago
  You're right and now I realize I must look rather silly. Thankfully there's a timeline where I saved my $1.99.

jdefelice 5y ago

First time I've came across the Universe Splitter was from This American Life with a good layman explanation. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/691/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/691/transcript

coliveira 5y ago

The "split universes" is the new science fiction that took the world by storm. It is an unproven hypothesis that satisfies the psychological needs of people who want to dream of a world that behaves according to their wishes.

lnanek2 5y ago
Most likely true, but that doesn't mean it is useless. Adherents to the split universe religi...er...theory might be more content with their lives, experience less anxiety, etc..
- coliveira 5y ago
  Exactly like in any other religion...
overgard 5y ago
My understanding is that the reason why the multiverse hypothesis (Everett interpretation) is popular with physicists is it simplifies the equations without losing predictive power. They actually have to add terms for the Copenhagen interpretation. I admittedly don't know the math well, but I think suggesting that it satisfies psychological needs is not generally accurate -- if anything, I think the average person finds the idea uncomfortable. Rather, it has legitimate explanatory and predictive power.
- colordrops 5y ago
  I hate when Occam's razor is applied to non-scientific domains, but this is clearly a scientific domain, and it applies here - multiverse theory is the simpler of the two explanations.
  - coliveira 5y ago
    Occam's razor is not a law. It is just a heuristic to consider scientific hypothesis. If you believe something just because of Occam's razor (without any other evidence) I would say this is not very scientific.

CollinEMac 5y ago

So this is a $1.99 coin flipper?

IshKebab 5y ago
Yes.

bsedlm 5y ago

> Within seconds, Universe Splitter© will receive the experiment's result and tell you which of the two universes you're in, and therefore which action to take if this thing is making my choices for me, then why not skip "the middle man" i.e. me? I sense a rising humanity motion (like rationalism, or the englightnement or whaterver) towards letting the algorithms make all of our choices. The new absolute monarch is the Algorithm. The Kings are dead, long live the algorithms!? disclaimer: as tha website is not serious but it does pretend to be, my own comment is also not entirely serious. Often difficult topics are better expressed through fiction (or partial fiction; fiction right now but maybe not later)

stjohnswarts 5y ago
or just use /s on things that are going to make a lot of people scratch their head and say "wtf?"

RistrettoMike 5y ago

This website, the app's visual design, and that old plastic-chromed iPhone all harken back to a simpler time when there were funny one-off apps just for the hell of it. The time of $1.99 quantum splitters, $0.99 iBeer, and $1.99 Lightsaber apps is long gone. Most of those apps didn't really do anything all that amazing, but looking back on it I think I miss when app stores were flush with "we could use the hardware to do this" rather than "we could get in-app purchases and subscriptions like this" Not that there wasn't monetization as a goal back then, but just that there was a lot of weird paradigms being experimented on where we now have a solidly 10-year norm instead.

brudgers 5y ago
That there-was-a-time was the-brief-moment-when the iPhone app store was a folk art medium. Popular folk art is dangerous. So a bureaucracy was built.
- dTal 5y ago
  Deliberate or not, the proprietors of commercial computing platforms do display a disturbingly consistent tendency to segregate their customers into "users" and "developers", to the harm of all. Program or be programmed!
ggasp 5y ago
I bought this App when was mentioned by Sean Carroll in one of his talks/podcast about quantum computing. And because of that, I really thought that they did something that was founded in quantum physics. Not that it was really important, but it was cool to say "see, now it's contacting LHC to shot another photon The only think that I'm sorry about is that with every change of iPhone I've lost the track of what Universe I am!
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Clearly, you are in the universe where a new iPhone was released.
5y ago

Taniwha 5y ago

Surely this is what happens to ALL internet packets in room 641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A downloading any app (much less using it) results in billions of worlds .....

mcguire 5y ago

Sean Carroll's Royal Institution lecture discussing the many worlds interpretation and using a similar app: https://youtu.be/5hVmeOCJjOU https://youtu.be/5hVmeOCJjOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5FYrOthvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5FYrOthvE

habitmelon 5y ago

Reminds me of post on taking both sides of the decision using a qubit: https://tobilehman.com/posts/qubits-multiverse/ https://tobilehman.com/posts/qubits-multiverse/

Angostura 5y ago

I've just bought this because I've never seen it before and it made both me and the wife laugh out loud.

robbomacrae 5y ago

How about a RealityOS with duplicate copies ready to be split. When a user faces an A/B options, realities 2, 3, and 4 can go ahead and execute A, B, and cancel so that when the user makes their choice the winning reality is put in focus and the diffs copied to the rest. You could even hover over a button and watch where it ends up. Like pre-fetching from browsers. Or when a debugger hits a break point reality 2 can proceed with the execution until you are done investigating. It could even act like a RAID backup in case a random bit flip causes one reality to crash. Alas it would be quite wasteful to spend watts on hypotheticals...

danielsokil 5y ago
Welcome to cryptocurrency mining!