Paintings of Terror

Chapter 268: Quantum Immortality

Ke Xun shared his thoughts with Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense their silence, as if they were suddenly enlightened.

You know, Zhu Haowen finally spoke with a somewhat peculiar tone, to mock the orthodox factions uncertainty principle, Schrdinger proposed the Schrdingers Cat theory. At that time, it indeed put the orthodox physicists in a difficult position because they couldnt explain the superposition state of life and death of the cat. tBVfsi

This problem became a puzzle that countless physicists wanted to solve. It wasnt until a physicist named Everett came up with the Many-worlds Interpretation, commonly known as parallel worlds.

Using the double-slit experiment as an example, when a single electron is emitted, how does it simultaneously pass through both slits? The Many-worlds Interpretation suggests that when the electron passes through the double slits, two worlds with superimposed states are created. In one world, the electron goes through the left slit, and in the other world, the electron goes through the right slit.

Thus, the wave function doesnt need to collapse to randomly choose whether it goes through the left or right slit. Because there are multiple universes, in the world of Universe A, the electron goes through the left slit, while in Universe B, people observe the electron going through the right slit.

So, this theory can be used to explain Schrdingers Cat. According to Everett, the two cats, one alive and one dead in the box, both exist in the real world. Its just that they are in two parallel and different worlds, displaying a superposition of states. LHAdfq

Using this to explain Cheng Shis suicide, then it becomes quite easy to understand. Cheng Shi treated himself as Schrdingers Cat. When he was alive, he lost his son, so he put himself in a state of superposition. At this point, parallel universes were created. The dead him existed in this universe, and the living him went to another universe to find his son, whos still alive there.

Wait a minute, Ke Xun said, Cheng Shi died in the manner of Schrdingers Cat, but his son didnt. He jumped directly from the building. How does that superimpose?

The principle is the same, Zhu Haowen explained, Replace Schrdingers Cat with a person, and the hammer with a gun. If a person shoots themselves, because the bullet is composed of particles with the property of wave functions, then there will always be a very, very small possibility that all the particles will collapse into one particular statenamely, they all avoided the persons head, ensuring the person remains unharmed.

Although the possibility of this situation is extremely minimal, due to the existence of the Many-worlds Interpretation, every universe displays one of the states of superposition. Then, in billions of parallel universes, there will always be one universe where all particles that make up the bullet avoided the persons head. yLBMnY

The same goes for other methods of suicide, whether its jumping off a building, cutting wrists, poisoning, electrocution, or hanging. There will always be some parallel universe where the person is still alive. In a certain universe, the person committing suicide can never die.

This situation is called quantum immortality.