Did Rick and Morty Change Dimensions Again
The Physics of Rick and Morty
The evidence gets multiverse theory totally incorrect—but information technology's all the same wonderful.
Rick and Morty
Adult Swim
First, we're introduced to Dimension 35c, a universe with the perfect climate weather to grow mega trees. Then there's the futurity dimension with serum to set broken legs at every corner drugstore. And the universes where pizzas eat people, anybody looks like Eric Stolz from the movie Mask, and of course, the one with the all-time ice cream in the multiverse.
The multiverse in all its incarnations—parallel universes, alternate realities, other dimensions—has long been an irresistible theme in science fiction. Most depictions of the multiverse involve ane, perhaps 2 universes too our own. Just when information technology comes to Adult Swim's Rick and Morty, it's hard, possibly impossible, to go on an accurate count.
The animated serial, whose long-awaited tertiary season premieres Sunday, follows deranged genius Rick as he tears through dimensions like a balderdash in a cosmic cathay shop, leaving backside a trail of Cronenbergs and corpses. He often brings his dopey grandson, Morty, along for the ride.
In a YouTube description, Adult Swim calls Rick and Morty its "most scientifically accurate animated one-act." The show does pack in a good corporeality of physics references and puts its own hilarious, baroque twist on them—which as a lapsed physicist–turned–science writer, I certainly appreciate. Personally, I rather like the idea that Albert Einstein discovered special relativity subsequently getting beaten up past testicle-headed quaternary-dimensional beings.
Rick and Morty's unique spin on the multiverse isn't meant to reflect existent physics. Yet physicists who study the cosmos appreciate the fact that it is bringing an esoteric scientific contend, whether there is such a affair equally the multiverse, into the public spotlight.
"I watched one episode, which I enjoyed. It'southward non intended to be taken seriously," said Matthew Kleban, a cosmologist at New York University. "I think it'southward much better that people are interested enough in the scientific discipline that they write stories about it, than if they didn't care."
Amidst physicists, there'due south no consensus on whether the multiverse really exists—or even what the give-and-take means. Some believe it could be and try to find traces of our universe colliding with a neighbor. Others call the theory utter nonsense since it says everything is equally probable, and and so nothing can disprove the idea.
"I'm not a large fan of the multiverse as science. In its current incarnation, the theory has taken a bug and turned it into a feature," said Adam Frank, an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester who served every bit a scientific consultant for Curiosity'due south Dr. Strange. "There is absolutely zip show for the existence of the multiverse."
The concept of a multiverse originally came from breakthrough mechanics, the branch of physics that explains the very strange world of the very small. In breakthrough mechanics, the many-worlds estimation states that every event causes the universe to separate off into dissimilar versions that encompass all possibilities. So, a unproblematic money flip would generate two parallel universes: i in which the coin landed heads, and in the other, tails. The episode "A Rickle in Time" riffs on this thought with incertitude after doubt resulting in 64 parallel timelines and floating Schrödinger'due south cats.
Today'southward concept of the multiverse arose as an blow of sorts. The theory of cosmological inflation imagines space-fourth dimension as a loaf of ascension bread, where bubbling—individual universes—form and grow. Eternal inflation assumes that this phase of expansion lasts forever in some regions, and taken to the limit, the model predicts a multiverse.
Rick explains the workings of the show's multiverse in "Rick Potion #9," afterward unleashing a genetic epidemic that turns the world's population into writhing blobs of mutant flesh. Instead of cleaning up the mess made of their own reality, he uses the portal gun to transport them to an alternate reality where they are greeted past their own mangled corpses.
"There's an infinite number of realities, Morty, and in a few dozen of those, I got lucky and turned everything back to normal," Rick says. "I just had to notice one of those realities in which we too happen to both dice around this fourth dimension." (The show uses reality, dimension, and timeline fairly interchangeably, whereas physicists use the term universe.)
A number of questions arise from this scene alone, but let's starting time with the idea of a multiverse that stretches beyond space realities. While the calculations do predict a huge number of possible universes out in that location, it even so falls curt of infinity.
"That number is roughly 1 with 500 zeroes, which is a bigger number than the number of ways you lot could rearrange the atoms on World—only information technology's not space," said Richard Matzner, a cosmologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
The gauge originates from string theory, which gained popularity in the 1990s as a possible "theory of everything" that would merge two disparate frameworks governing the very big (general relativity) and the very minor (quantum mechanics). A more than contempo calculation by Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin of Stanford University expands on the x^500 value, taking into account quantum fluctuations that may produce variations of a single universe. Their "humongous" number is x^10^ten^7, although they whittle it down to 10^10^16 when considering the capacity of the human brain to distinguish different universes.
So co-ordinate to the theory, does this hateful I have x^10^sixteen copies of myself floating around in the multiverse somewhere? Of grade not, since the endless possibilities mean many universes would be barren of life, planets, and stars. Perhaps there could be a universe that, like ours, is also expanding—only so apace that it doubles in size with every passing second. Whatever stars, planets, and organisms that be would be ripped apart or immediately vaporized. Or a universe that only lives for a fraction of a 2nd, instead of the xiii billion years our observable universe has lived.
"You could accept regions of the multiverse where the local laws of physics are quite different, such as a different number of dimensions or college dimensions that you could actually come across," said Kleban. "There are some pretty exotic possibilities."
Fifty-fifty though the infinite realities of Rick and Morty include thousands of versions of themselves, they don't occupy every dimension.
"Most timelines have a Rick, and most Ricks have a Morty," says Rick in "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind," as he is led through the Citadel of Ricks, the secret headquarters where a governing body of Ricks gather together. "This place is a real who's who of who's you and me." A ridiculous detailed Reddit thread describing the workings of the show's multiverse notes that "there aren't infinite Citadels of Ricks, infinite C-137s, etc." and no repeat dimensions exist, either.
For Rick to encounter another version of himself, non to mention thousands of them, he requires the means to freely travel between universes. In the show, his portal gun opens up wormholes that connect ii different points in space-time and serve as a convenient fashion of transportation. Simply the constraints of our world prevent such a gadget from becoming a reality.
"I could meet myself in another universe if I could go to another universe, merely at that place's no technical manner to do it," said Matzner. "Theoretically, with a whole lot of energy, one could build a wormhole."
Since the 1930s, physicists take toyed around with the idea of wormholes, which are consequent with Einstein'southward theory of general relativity. But none accept ever been observed, and then their beingness remains purely hypothetical at this bespeak. As well, creating your own wormhole would require an infinite amount of energy. And then if y'all are nursing an ambition to jump through infinite-fourth dimension from our world—sorry, simply you'll have to live vicariously through Rick's interdimensional search for Szechuan McNugget sauce.
For science fiction, the multiverse is a gilded mine of compelling story ideas. But how could we show or disprove it? Some physicists like Kleban believe we could observe bear witness of the multiverse through something chosen chimera collisions. If the edges of two universes crashed into each other in the distant past, a signature banner would be left backside in the sky. The hunt for bubble collisions continues, although Kleban himself has acknowledged finding one would be a long shot. "If convincing evidence of the multiverse is institute, it would exist one of the biggest discoveries in human history akin to the Copernican revolution," he said.
Despite the multiverse'southward shaky foundation, the theory provides countless provender for Rick and Morty and science fiction in full general. I appreciate when writers put effort into getting the science right—shout out to Syfy's The Area for being especially good at this—but that's not what gets viewers hooked. It's the storytelling, the seamless weaving together of fact and fiction, and the vision for what our future as a species could look like. "The multiverse is such a succulent idea for fiction, and there'south no harm in it as long as there's a healthy public debate about the actual scientific discipline," said Frank.
Of grade, agreement the science of the multiverse is piffling to a guy similar Rick. But we tin't all exist reckless, pansexual, alcoholic geniuses.
This article is part of Hereafter Tense , a collaboration amid Arizona State University , New America , and Slate . Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies impact society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow usa on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter .
Source: https://slate.com/technology/2017/07/rick-and-morty-gets-multiverse-theory-wrong-thats-ok.html
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