Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: parallel universes



On May 17, 2004, at 8:46 PM, Fran Poodry wrote:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Jim. It seems odd to me that
someone
would explain interference patterns by postulating parallel universes.
don't want my students to ignore it, but I want to be able to provide
meaningful

Actually this "theory" was used in a popular science fiction novel
recently (I
read too much of this stuff and can't recall the exact work -- maybe
Michael
Crichton's TIMELINE?) Crichton is infamous for this hyperbolic
"stretching"
of "science." I seem to vaguely recall a plot claim that single photons
passing through a slit in our universe form the interference pattern by
apparently scattering from photons in another "parallel universe." This
effect
is then used to build a cross-universe communications or travel device.

I actually prefer Robert Forward's SF and like to read "hard" SF
-- this idea was a little amusing at first though b/c I was teaching
QM/Modern
for HS teachers at the time. Ask your student what SF novels they've
been reading lately and I think you'll find this idea there...

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor, Physics, SUNY Buffalo State College
222 SCIE BSC 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY 14222 716-878-3802
<macisadl@buffalostate.edu> <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu>