Here are some recent links to things I found interesting of late, which may or may not be connected. It just depends on which Universe you live in.
Reasons the Indians Lost. I'm not much of a sports fan, professional sports even less so. I do like LaCrosse, which combines all the best parts of hockey, soccer, and basketball. I like baseball, but find the number of games in the pro season endless and intimidating. If pro baseball had a season like pro football, I would probably be a big fan. As it is, I tend to like baseball teams with short seasons, like the
Hoover Sweepers.
Hence, I don't watch pro baseball unless a team of interest makes it into the playoffs - which the Cleveland Indians did recently. Of course, they maintained the tradition of breaking the hearts of their Northeast Ohio fans, but not before giving us some thrilling moments.
In an attempt to make sense of their recent loss to the Boston Red Sox, Rob Treynor, a friend from
Last.fm, has written an essay on the
reasons the Indians lost. It makes about as much sense as anything else does.
Opening the Doors on Parallel Universes. I have a basic problem with Alternate Universe theory. Suppose we find a way to travel between them. It's going to take a bit of doing to find one of the many infinite universes where Adolf Hitler never existed (and don't forget, without him, women might still be homebound housewives, and I for one would not exist at all - so in one of those parallel worlds, you're not reading this right now).
The reason for my theory is that, with 6.6 billion people making untold decisions each day, the result is untold Parallel Universes virtually identical to this one, with the exception of one event that is insignificant. For example, you hop to the universe next door, it looks identical - except
I didn't go to Starbucks this morning - I ate oatmeal at my desk instead.
Boy, what an exciting universe that must be.
And when you get done with the insignificant Joe Clifford Faust universes, you have to deal with all of the others. Like the one where your neighbor mowed his lawn a day early. Then the one where your neighbor mows his lawn on Tuesdays instead of Thursdays.
Then you get to the one where your buddy in the bowling league rolled a 217 instead of a 216. Then the universe where Stephen King used @!!* instead of &*@! on page 329 of his new novel. Now work your way across the world and end up with that last guy in China and the day he decided not to pedal hard on his commute to work, and got there on time instead of a couple of minutes early.
All of those universes virtually identical to this one - so identical you can't tell the difference. It would take an enormous amount of work to find something that is really different.
And don't give me that song and dance about the Butterfly Effect. Yeah, that's a cool theory, but let's face it... with millions of butterflies taking wing every day, it's rather unlikely that every single one of them is going to affect some world-wracking change.
Anyway, here's a recent
rather unimpressive article about how mathematics have allegedly proven the existence of infinite Parallel Universes, which in turn led to a
long thread of Digg comments that is one of the most entertaining and creative things I've read on the web in a long time.
Meantime, if any of you travelers find the universe where pro baseball has a 15 game season, let me know.
Comments
My favorite alternate universe, the one I refer to whenever the topic comes up, is the one where everything is exactly the same as this one, except that I chose to wear a sombrero today.
I sometimes, however, have the president wearing the sombrero. In those universes, I'm wearing my normal baseball cap.
#
posted by
Rob
October 24, 2007 12:31 AM
<< Home
Links to this post:
