Modern physics is a field full of fascinating ideas and strange ruminations, a place that seems more suited to science fiction but is posited as scientific fact. It’s a place of big ideas like parallel universes, multiverses, the holographic principle, quantum computing, and entropy. Physics theories and ideas are just as surreal and challenging as any modern artwork, so it’s interesting when the two disciplines merge, as they do with this: the Quantum Parallelograph from Patrick Stevenson-Keating.Stevenson-Keating, who is currently studying Product Design at the University of Dundee in Scotland, has developed this research product to explore the ideas of alternate realities: places where, according to some physicists, an infinite amount of possibilities play out around our lives. Remember the train you took to work today? In the multiverse, another “you” didn’t make it. Or maybe you didn’t even get the job you’re doing. Or perhaps Patrick Stevenson-Keating never went to university and this product postulating the existence of the multiverse doesn’t exist. The designer explains, “the project is rooted in the pioneering work of Professor David Deutsch of Oxford University, and the earlier work of Professor Hugh Everett, who argue for infinite copies of ourselves existing within multiple universes.” Read up on those scientists here and here to have your mind further blown.This all sounds like it’s the plot of an episode of The Twilight Zone or some cheesy film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, but scientists seriously consider the possibility of many realities existing side by side. It’s daunting that our uniqueness might be a lie, and we could in fact be replicated in an infinite amount of worlds.So how does this contraption work? Does it run on the blood of shamans? God’s spit? Fairy dust? Nah, this is serious academic work, after all. According to Stevenson-Keating’s web site, it “uses online sources to find the ‘parallel lives’ of users, and prints out a short statement about their ‘simultaneous’ life in a parallel world.” Presumably, this means looking at online sources which mention your name, then merging them together to create an account of your self’s existence in a parallel world. The designer says, "Aside from the intrinsically fascinating nature of the science itself, I am very interested in how scientific principles like the Hugh Everett theory translate into everyday life, and impact our lives subliminally."
The product operates by applying Young's Double Slit Experiment, which involves a single photon beam passing through two separate slits. Somehow the beams manage to interact with each other, suggesting the theory that the contraption is interacting with its parallel version. Stevenson-Keating’s design project grapples with the complicated ideas of quantum physics, so rather than just exploring them conceptually in an abstract way, it playfully engages the user by pretending to be an object that can delve into the multiverse—a futuristic prop that can bring back information about alternate lives lived in parallel universes of infinite possibilities that exist concurrently in space-time, where multiple versions of you live out the manifold alternative paths that your life may’ve taken… Cue the Twilight Zone music.[via Creative Applications.]
Advertisement