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The Everett Device
“Professor!”
I stopped and turned at the sound of the voice of my newest Ph. D. candidate. “Hey, Tom. I was just on the way to my office.” I gestured vaguely down the hall and took a step in that direction, but he shook his head.
“You gotta come to the lab. I figured out the Everett Device!”
I sighed and reached up to push my glasses up against my face. “The Everett Device doesn’t work. This has been proved by dozens of scientists. It’s a dead end.”
Tom shook his head again, his disheveled brown hair only growing more so from the violence of the motion. “I got it working! I can prove it!”
I sighed again, louder this time. “Come with me to my office,” I said, turning my back and gesturing with my hand to follow.
“You don’t believe me.”
I rolled my eyes with my back turned to him; wouldn’t do to show him impatience. “I’m sure you think you got it working, but I’m sure I can explain to you why you didn’t.” I didn’t wait for a response as I walked towards my office, my shoes thudding dully on the tile floor. When I got to my office door, I swung it open and stood aside, looking at Tom expectantly.
Tom rubbed his hand through his hair as he walked down the hall, glancing into my office before stepping inside and pulling up the chair on the near side of my desk. I closed the door behind him before going to take my own seat, folding my hands on my desk.
“So, you think you’ve figured out how to get the Everett Device to function.”
“I did! I know it works.” He leaned forward over my desk, his hands pressing down against the wood. “I can prove it.”
“Tom. What does the Everett Device do?” I asked, staring at him across the desk.
Tom scowled. “You know what it does.”
“Humor me.” I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands behind my head.
He groaned. “The Everett Device transfers mass between parallel dimensions.”
“Yes. And it doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as parallel dimensions,” I said, nodding my head.
He grinned. “And what if I said there was? What if I said--”
“You stepped into the device and you aren’t actually the Tom I know, but actually a Tom from another dimension. At which point you’re going to try and cite some minute detail that would vary between dimensions, and I would be surprised.” I waved my hand. “Everyone knows the machine doesn’t work. Power goes in, you go back out, everything is exactly the same on the other side. It goes nowhere. There have been dozens of experiments, and all of them show the same thing.”
Tom’s frown returned. “Look, Professor. I know you don’t believe me. But the math is flawed. If you go back and look at the basic equations, they clearly show—”
“That the machine works. Everyone knows, Tom. We can all do the math.”
Tom shook his head. “You don’t get it! If you work through, all of the published equations make the same mistake. In the sixth set of equations, when you—”
“We all know, Tom. It’s not like we don’t do it on purpose.”
Tom blinked. “What?”
I sighed again. I hated explaining this to newbies. “Look, you’re familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum dynamics. That’s the entire premise of the Everett device. Things don’t go the same way on the quantum level, boom, two parallel realities. Never interacting.” I meshed my fingers together. “Well, not without an Everett device anyway. Two possibilities, two ways things might have gone. Or a lot more than that, most of the time.”
“I’ve taken—“
“Yeah, and so have I. You think every physicist made the same math error accidentally? The device works, but all the results show that there’s zero divergence between parallel realities. In a million realities, there’s a million yous having this exact same conversation with a million mes.”
“Well, there’s some variation—“
I laughed. “No, there isn’t. All of the experiments show zero divergence. It’s all the same.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “No reason to expect different realities to turn out different. Really, it’s all in the math.”
He stared at me. “If you know this, then why isn’t it published?”
I leaned forward, arching my fingers. “What choice do I really have?”
I stopped and turned at the sound of the voice of my newest Ph. D. candidate. “Hey, Tom. I was just on the way to my office.” I gestured vaguely down the hall and took a step in that direction, but he shook his head.
“You gotta come to the lab. I figured out the Everett Device!”
I sighed and reached up to push my glasses up against my face. “The Everett Device doesn’t work. This has been proved by dozens of scientists. It’s a dead end.”
Tom shook his head again, his disheveled brown hair only growing more so from the violence of the motion. “I got it working! I can prove it!”
I sighed again, louder this time. “Come with me to my office,” I said, turning my back and gesturing with my hand to follow.
“You don’t believe me.”
I rolled my eyes with my back turned to him; wouldn’t do to show him impatience. “I’m sure you think you got it working, but I’m sure I can explain to you why you didn’t.” I didn’t wait for a response as I walked towards my office, my shoes thudding dully on the tile floor. When I got to my office door, I swung it open and stood aside, looking at Tom expectantly.
Tom rubbed his hand through his hair as he walked down the hall, glancing into my office before stepping inside and pulling up the chair on the near side of my desk. I closed the door behind him before going to take my own seat, folding my hands on my desk.
“So, you think you’ve figured out how to get the Everett Device to function.”
“I did! I know it works.” He leaned forward over my desk, his hands pressing down against the wood. “I can prove it.”
“Tom. What does the Everett Device do?” I asked, staring at him across the desk.
Tom scowled. “You know what it does.”
“Humor me.” I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands behind my head.
He groaned. “The Everett Device transfers mass between parallel dimensions.”
“Yes. And it doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as parallel dimensions,” I said, nodding my head.
He grinned. “And what if I said there was? What if I said--”
“You stepped into the device and you aren’t actually the Tom I know, but actually a Tom from another dimension. At which point you’re going to try and cite some minute detail that would vary between dimensions, and I would be surprised.” I waved my hand. “Everyone knows the machine doesn’t work. Power goes in, you go back out, everything is exactly the same on the other side. It goes nowhere. There have been dozens of experiments, and all of them show the same thing.”
Tom’s frown returned. “Look, Professor. I know you don’t believe me. But the math is flawed. If you go back and look at the basic equations, they clearly show—”
“That the machine works. Everyone knows, Tom. We can all do the math.”
Tom shook his head. “You don’t get it! If you work through, all of the published equations make the same mistake. In the sixth set of equations, when you—”
“We all know, Tom. It’s not like we don’t do it on purpose.”
Tom blinked. “What?”
I sighed again. I hated explaining this to newbies. “Look, you’re familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum dynamics. That’s the entire premise of the Everett device. Things don’t go the same way on the quantum level, boom, two parallel realities. Never interacting.” I meshed my fingers together. “Well, not without an Everett device anyway. Two possibilities, two ways things might have gone. Or a lot more than that, most of the time.”
“I’ve taken—“
“Yeah, and so have I. You think every physicist made the same math error accidentally? The device works, but all the results show that there’s zero divergence between parallel realities. In a million realities, there’s a million yous having this exact same conversation with a million mes.”
“Well, there’s some variation—“
I laughed. “No, there isn’t. All of the experiments show zero divergence. It’s all the same.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “No reason to expect different realities to turn out different. Really, it’s all in the math.”
He stared at me. “If you know this, then why isn’t it published?”
I leaned forward, arching my fingers. “What choice do I really have?”
Ah, the Strong Mandatory Anthropic Principle. A nice way to puncture the usual fantasies of parallel worlds. You won’t ever be able to go find your dead loved ones in another reality, as they all died there too at the same time.
This story feels a bit dry to me at present, but could be fleshed out with a bit of human interest of the kind I just mentioned, or left as a one-punch science joke. Thanks for writing, Author!
This story feels a bit dry to me at present, but could be fleshed out with a bit of human interest of the kind I just mentioned, or left as a one-punch science joke. Thanks for writing, Author!
Very inventive! I like the idea enough that I'm willing to ignore how incorrect it is. :raritywink:
The largest issue I feel this story has is that the establishment of the "excited student, annoyed professor" dynamic uses up most of the story when it really doesn't need to. Even if the dynamic hadn't felt unrealistic to me (see below the quote for more on that), it's the bulk of the text, which seems like a waste of space (or padding). The number one thing I'd have done here is trim content. I'm confident that you could tell this story in 400 words instead of 700+ without losing anything, and saying things more concisely is part of the benefit of minific competitions.
I'm uncertain what the ending is trying to say. Is the professor saying that the research is unpublishable, or are they saying they won't publish because they feel that they don't have 'free will' in some misinformed interpretation of causality? Neither option makes any sense, and I don't see a third one. I think you should be more explicit, and that whatever you are trying to say, the idea should be justified in the story.
You don't need to tell us this. The reader can guess his mood from the continual sighing and eye-rolling. :derpytongue2:
This isn't a major issue, but why would the professor hate explaining something if there's no way a student could possibly know the answer? If for some odd reason this obvious task did annoy them, why wouldn't they create an informational pamphlet, or teach it in class, or cover it on day one with a new RA? I don't understand the professor's annoyance, and it feels highly unrealistic from somepony who's been in the RA position and also had students work for her. A professor wouldn't feel contempt toward a student's enthusiasm, even if she knows her student is in error. That's essentially her role as advisor (and adviser, as well).
The largest issue I feel this story has is that the establishment of the "excited student, annoyed professor" dynamic uses up most of the story when it really doesn't need to. Even if the dynamic hadn't felt unrealistic to me (see below the quote for more on that), it's the bulk of the text, which seems like a waste of space (or padding). The number one thing I'd have done here is trim content. I'm confident that you could tell this story in 400 words instead of 700+ without losing anything, and saying things more concisely is part of the benefit of minific competitions.
I'm uncertain what the ending is trying to say. Is the professor saying that the research is unpublishable, or are they saying they won't publish because they feel that they don't have 'free will' in some misinformed interpretation of causality? Neither option makes any sense, and I don't see a third one. I think you should be more explicit, and that whatever you are trying to say, the idea should be justified in the story.
I sighed again. I hated explaining this to newbies.
You don't need to tell us this. The reader can guess his mood from the continual sighing and eye-rolling. :derpytongue2:
This isn't a major issue, but why would the professor hate explaining something if there's no way a student could possibly know the answer? If for some odd reason this obvious task did annoy them, why wouldn't they create an informational pamphlet, or teach it in class, or cover it on day one with a new RA? I don't understand the professor's annoyance, and it feels highly unrealistic from somepony who's been in the RA position and also had students work for her. A professor wouldn't feel contempt toward a student's enthusiasm, even if she knows her student is in error. That's essentially her role as advisor (and adviser, as well).
“Tom. What does the Everett Device do?” I asked, staring at him across the desk.
Tom scowled. “You know what it does.”
“Humor me.” I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands behind my head.
"Well, as you know, Bob…"
As much as I'd like to see smoother exposition, the real problem here is, once again, a confusion over what you actually want your core premise to be, and what the implications of that core are, which results in you inserting contradictory details:
“Yes. And it doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as parallel dimensions,” I said, nodding my head.
“We all know [parallel dimensions exist], Tom. It’s not like we don’t [all make the same mistake on the published math] on purpose.”
Both of these are, I should point out, after they retreat to the professor's office. The denial in the first line isn't trying to paper over the conspiracy in public so he can reveal the truth in private. The denial is, apparently, just leading Tom on. If the twist ending is correct and there's a huge science-wide conspiracy to cover up deliberately fudged math (itself a bit of a stretch, but whatever), then basically the professor is just lying to Tom's face — for, as far as I can tell, no good reason, because he casually volunteers the truth two paragraphs later!
Tom's goal is pretty clear here (he's onto a discovery he earnestly believes is a breakthrough), but it doesn't look like the professor was written with your overall story structure in mind. So there's a huge conspiracy to suppress this invention which actually accesses parallel universes (even though the story claims that they're all identical, which I'll get to in a bit). What does the professor get out of suppressing this knowledge? What is his goal here (and the goal of the conspiracy)? If the actual operation of the device is so demonstrably pointless, why lie about the math in the first place? (I'm not saying there's not a good answer to that question, but we don't hear it here. And I don't feel like whatever answer exists is adequate to explain why he would take Tom behind closed doors to lie to him, only to volunteer the truth five seconds later.) If you decide before you write/edit that "the professor's goal is to protect the conspiracy", it becomes quickly obvious that he's got an incentive to lie in public and then level with Tom in private. You can drop the hammer blow of your twist as soon as they get behind closed doors, and then you're setting up a juicy conflict about what Tom does with this new knowledge.
Right now, rather than that conflict, it seems like you're doubling down on the all universes are identical bit, which leads to your final line about predestination. I think that's a mistake. It seems like your contention here is that, just because all universes are identical to this one, predestination is a necessary conclusion. Those are orthogonal problems, though! The only way to prove predestination is to have a mechanism of prediction for future actions, and unless the Everett Device has some sort of time component (which it doesn't seem to), it can't address that. More importantly, the professor isn't acting like he has future knowledge: he didn't anticipate the topic of Tom's visit, for instance. Tom's objection is valid: what is the actual barrier to him publishing? If he decides to publish, a million professors in a million dimensions will do the same thing, but all of their lives will continue with publication having happened. The Professor seems to be assuming that he can't publish because he assumes he can't publish; worse, every single member of the conspiracy seems to be uniformly assuming that as well — which is dubious on its face given the fact that Tom knows the truth and doesn't agree!
So, yeah, you've got an interesting core idea here, but I don't feel like the story came together around it. Fixing some of the issues noted above can be done fairly trivially, but if you follow where the implications of your story lead (big conspiracies, etc) it'll take some deeper tinkering to really get everything aligning. Thanks for submitting, regardless, and good wishes for your editing!
Tier: Needs Work
a science fiction story where it turns out the science doesn't work, so nothing happens, and everyone goes to bed. the end.
I mean the idea isn't bad. following the scientists testing the device and coming to this conclusion could've been fun. exploring the ramifications of why they keep this knowledge secret could've been thought-provoking. but standing around explaining how it works was dull.
I mean the idea isn't bad. following the scientists testing the device and coming to this conclusion could've been fun. exploring the ramifications of why they keep this knowledge secret could've been thought-provoking. but standing around explaining how it works was dull.
Real talk, this was a little frustrating for me to read, because the pacing is seriously unbalanced. The story spends more than 600 words circling around the reveal, and the entire time I didn't feel like I was being given any important information or clues. The time spent describing the function of the device does not feel like unpeeling the layers of a mystery, because the reader needs to know this information to even know what the mystery is. Without context, I was not intrigued by the lack of information; I was stuck waiting for the story to get to the point. And then, five lines from the bottom, the story just drops the reveal. And the reveal is: nothing that you just read about actually matters. I'm afraid that it was very hard for me to come away from this one feeling satisfied.
This is a technically competent story, but not a very compelling one, for all the reasons that have already been pointed out. It relies on math that we can't see, and assertions about how parallel universes work that we can't do anything about, so... I'm just not sure what the takeaway here is supposed to be. "Things work like this, Tom gets his dream crushed, because the author says so. The end, no moral." That's the story, and it leaves me asking "Okay? But so what?"
There are some subtle suggestions of a conspiracy, and I found those the the most interesting part of the piece. As soon as Tom was invited into the office, I was thinking he would leave it either dead or convinced to cover up the truth because the device opens a hell dimension or something. Just about anything would be more interesting than the actual (non-)reveal that yes, it works, but it doesn't do anything.
Solid execution, good prose, reads well. Just needs a spark of life to give the reader a reason to care about what's being presented. See horizon for more detailed advice if you wanted to rework it into a conspiracy story! Thanks for writing!
There are some subtle suggestions of a conspiracy, and I found those the the most interesting part of the piece. As soon as Tom was invited into the office, I was thinking he would leave it either dead or convinced to cover up the truth because the device opens a hell dimension or something. Just about anything would be more interesting than the actual (non-)reveal that yes, it works, but it doesn't do anything.
Solid execution, good prose, reads well. Just needs a spark of life to give the reader a reason to care about what's being presented. See horizon for more detailed advice if you wanted to rework it into a conspiracy story! Thanks for writing!
Instead of going out with a bang for my final review, I will instead go out with a whimper and just say >>horizon nailed my thoughts pretty well.
Mmpf. The idea is interesting and depressing at the same time. If everything is predetermined, what liberty still exists? I'm a way, quantum mechanics has buoyed up the idea of free will that had been scuppered by the 17th century mechanistic approach: if we function like machines, then knowing enough of our initial variables and of the laws we are subjected to leads to the prediction of all future states.
Anyways.
What I do not understand is why that disappointing result is kept hidden and even concealed under false math. The machine works but points to non divergent universes. Right, so be it. Admit that and move on. But why should that be hushed up? I mean, just for other students to bang their heads and find the elephant in the room? What's the point of all this swindle? That's what I don't get, and it ruins the story in part, because finally that's a big question I care about and which is never answered.
Anyways.
What I do not understand is why that disappointing result is kept hidden and even concealed under false math. The machine works but points to non divergent universes. Right, so be it. Admit that and move on. But why should that be hushed up? I mean, just for other students to bang their heads and find the elephant in the room? What's the point of all this swindle? That's what I don't get, and it ruins the story in part, because finally that's a big question I care about and which is never answered.