Particles are Two-Faced Liars, the Lot of Them

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Dear Readers,
   I admit, I've been on kind of a quantum time kick lately.  I like time, I like quantum mechanics.  Sometimes.

   Sometimes I like cheap puns too, so I hope you can look past that.

   There is rather a serious issue about the interaction of quantum mechanics and time, though.  In my post about WD-36, I talked about the idea of "spooky action at a distance" taking place within a time dimension.  Aka, the future affecting the past via quantum science.

  If you start adding length, width, and depth into the mix you get some damned strange ideas.  Things from one part of our four dimensional space (one's a time dimension, so don't get too bent out of shape, ladies and gents) can pop into other parts of it with some kind of probability.  Bit wacky, but it presents the idea that there's no reality of time, just a continuity of it with particles buzzing about every which way while we try and think that our actions are somehow happening in a straight line.

  It's sort of like the straight line where you're going to the store to buy milk, but you forget your keys and you have to go back down the line to the keys, which were perfectly content to stay where they were.  I'm sure from the keys' perspective, getting picked up and taken about is rather surprising.

   Now imagine, for a minute, that you've gone and done something rather silly, like say, starting in a faculty position at a University that happens to run parallel to every other time ever.  Suddenly you've got all kinds of particles that are buzzing through your brain, entangled partners to the particles in all the brains you've ever had in all the lives you've ever lived in all the places you've ever lived them.  Half the particles tell the truth about where they came from, half don't.  Your brain is half your evil twin, half a nest of vile wasps, and there's a couple more halves in there that I can't even think of.  It's the best high you've ever had with the worst downer stuck on the side, and a whole lot of trivia.



   Some days, that idiotic decision makes you into a brilliant researcher, fighter, leader, whatever, amongst a whole host of other people who are resurrected renaissance men and women by virtue of the grand quantum composite personality they get to have.

   Other days, it gives you one hell of a headache, leaves you confused, and you forget your keys in every house you ever owned.
  I need a pint.

  Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople