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It was a normal Tuesday morning. Or as normal as could be expected I should say - no day is like the previous one, and especially not like the next, here at the Institute for the Study of Hypothetical Worlds in the middle of the Tibetian Desert.
It is difficult to explain what we are doing - not because it is secret or overly complicated but because most people start interrupting to complain that surely we have enough problems to worry about already, given that the vast majority of the planet has become uninhabitable, and that anyone who sits around all the time day dreaming about some fantasy is wasting valuable resources just by breathing. Getting your entire life's work called into question like that quickly becomes tiresome.
But the shameful truth is that there really is no way to argue against that. What do the people on Earth gain from new insights about parallel universes in which the laws of physics are decided by parliament? What value is there in theorizing about alternate histories, where the library of Alexendria had not burned down but was destroyed in a flood instead? What good could possibly come out of peering into the vast landscape of possible modes of existence, entirely unreachable for all but one filled with misery and suffering?
Nothing, they would say. To which I would reply - maybe. But what if it did?
Before I could finish the thought Niki entered my office, with an irritated look on their face. "Why are you sitting at my desk again?"
We have a slight difference of opinion regarding some matters.
"Chill your horses. Your chair is the only one with wheels in the entire institute, try to be a bit more caring towards your fellow coworkers."
"That's because you broke all the others."
"There you go again, always obsessing over the details. What matters is the big picture. Which, I might add, I had a big breakthrough with. Have a seat."
I nod towards the stool in the corner of the room.
"Raemi."
"Alright, alright."
It is not always easy being the most considerate person in the room, but it's just in my nature. Many people say it is also my greatest weakness.
Having switched places, Niki finally starts showing interest in my discovery.
"A breakthrough? You mean a new world? We are almost finished fleshing out the two dimensional universe made of eels, so it's great that we can start thinking about the next one."
It turned out that the symmetries of two dimensional spacetime do not allow for very interesting properties for electricity, so the results were very similar to universes made of regular fish and we could finish the job in just a few weeks.
"No you don't understand, I didn't just come up with the next little toy to temporarily satisfy your curiosity. I came up with the toy factory."
Intrigued, they rolled closer to the desk. Show-off.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I found the holy grail. Well, our holy grail - most people won't care. Anyway, I figured out the structure of structures, the blueprint to printing blue, the formula to win all Formula 1 races, the-"
"Raemi! Details, please!"
You might think Niki is being incredibly rude, but you have to forgive them. Ever since humanity found the definitive Theory of Everything over a hundred years ago the type of people who would have become theoretical physicists had nothing to do. Of course there still are many open problems in areas like condensed matter physics, chemistry, pure mathematics, but those are just not the same. So, what do they do? They come to the Institute, eager to work out problems that don't exist. And while they are good at solving problems, most people's brains just aren't wired to come up with puzzles so irrelevent to real life that nobody has solved them before. That's where I come in.
"Okay, okay! So, I played around with the real laws of physics for a change - gross, I know - and I think I found a loophole. You know how every particle is entangled with the whole universe?"
"Of course, every child knows that."
Just for the record, they don't.
"Right. So, in theory, if you could force that particle into a specific state, you can deform the universe into whatever you want."
"That is a very big if. If we could actually do that we could refreeze the Earth's ice caps so we wouldn't have to live on a mountain range."
I don't think it is so bad here, but whatever. Someone who was born on a city ship has different standards of living I suppose.
"I know, it can't be done in reality. But I tried it on paper and - it worked."
"What do you mean, it worked? You refroze the ice caps?"
"No, it worked on paper! I simply added to the theory of everything the axiom that it can be done. Then you just plug in the kind of world you want to see and the equations spit out... everything."
"I don't understand."
"That's why I am going to show you. Come with me."
Posted 2021-06-10
2021-07-27 | cool_story
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