That Burning Smell is Me Thinking…

According to a team of researchers at Oxford, led by Dr. David Deutsch, parallel universes are a mathematical possibility. Their findings show that the universe is actually a multiverse made up of expanding parallel universes. The existence of parallel universes leads to many questions like, what if we could travel to parallel universes and observe the differences? Have people from other parallel universes already visited us? Can we exploit parallel universes for our benefit?

One theory in quantum mechanics holds that particles on the subatomic scale do not settle into a state until they are observed or measured. Before the observation or measurement occurs, all possibilities of the outcome exist simultaneously. An analogy would be a perspective student receiving a letter from a university he applied to. Before the envelope is opened, and the letter is read by the student, there may exist three possibilities; one in which the student will be attending the university in the fall, another where he is working at Burger World, and another where he decides to backpack across Europe for a year. If he is accepted to the university and decides to attend, then the burger flipping and backpacking universes end.

The theory that Dr. Deutsch and his team proved mathematically is that when an event happens, the universe branches off into parallel versions of itself. His work is based on a theory put forward fifty years ago by a graduate student at Princeton named Hugh Everett. According to the branching theory, our perspective student reads the acceptance letter and the universe splits into many parallel universes, one in which the student decides to attend the university in the fall, another where he takes a year off and goes on his European adventure, and maybe another where he joins a hippy commune. These parallel universes continue on and keep expanding into more parallel universes as more events happen in his life.

Dr. Deutsch’s work raises many possibilities and, if we are able to someday find a way to reach these parallel worlds, we can better understand the consequences of world events. But would we really be able to learn from them, or would our presence in a parallel universe influence the outcome of events we are trying to observe? Science fiction fans are familiar with time travel in which the hero of a story travels back in time to observe, and possibly correct, something that went wrong in the past. During time travel, our hero may do something that seems innocent but sets off a catastrophic chain of events, like a butterfly flapping its wings in California causing a tornado in Kansas.

So what if, in the course of traveling in time, we could also travel to a parallel universe and stand over Lee Harvey Oswald’s shoulder as he pulled the trigger on that fateful day in November 1963? A time traveler from a parallel universe could push him right as he was taking his shot, causing him to miss, and then find out if a second gunman on the grassy knoll really was the one who made the kill shot. What if Oswald was the lone gunman and our traveler allowed Kennedy to get away that day? The world would be very different, at least in that version of the universe.

How do we know that there doesn’t already exist a secretive group of people who travel through space, time, and parallel universes gently influencing the course of human events? What if our version of reality is actually an experiment by this group to see how incredibly absurd humans can become? Extraterrestrial beings could actually be parallel travelers in disguise. The possible reason why the UFO crash that happened in Roswell, New Mexico many years ago has been kept so secret is that the beings, and their vehicle, are actually from a parallel version of earth where human evolution and technology took a different course. There are theories that the ancient Egyptians had help from extra terrestrials building the pyramids. Could the helpers actually have been a more advanced version of Egyptians from a parallel universe? Finding a portal to parallel universes could answer these mysteries.

There exists a physical law that states that no two objects can exist in the same place at the same time. Research into parallel universes could render that law completely false because if we would be able to have parallel universes within the same space, then we would be able to solve many problems in society like overpopulation. Imagine if we find a parallel version of Earth where the population of humans is significantly smaller. We could send people from our universe to colonize that universe and start large farms to feed our version of the universe. We could also set up a parallel version of Chicago and be able to have several apartment buildings on the same piece of real estate. One could theoretically reside in one universe and commute to work in another.

The proof of parallel universes by Oxford researchers opens up many possibilities. If we are able to expand upon their work, and someday find a way to other parallel universes and observe them, we can possibly find ways to improve ourselves and creatively solve many problems.

I see many random things. Here is a box of broken glass. Enjoy!

A friend of mine has this weird talent, I would break my bones trying to do this.

Today is May Day. International Worker’s Day.

I usually try to wear a red shirt to show my solidarity with the workers, but I looked in my drawer and I realized I donated it to the People’s Music School clothing drive. So I wore a black long sleeve t-shirt instead.

Three days from now is the anniversary of the Haymarket Riot of 1886. I think I will go there to see if people are commemorating on Friday. It is sad to see that many of the reforms that these people died for now ring hollow. Now, over a hundred years later, we are slipping back to where we were in the late 1800’s when the robber barons and monopolies ruled the land.

I had a strange dream last night. In the dream there was this guy who decided to help me out by giving me his student ID so I can have access to a prestigious university library. The funny thing was it was in a bad area of a big city, there had been a bunch of stabbings in the library and it was dimly lit. That didn’t deter me because I needed information. I have no idea what information I needed, but I needed to do research. The dream ended with my iBook and a bunch of reference books in front of me all over a big table and feeling secure.

I think I just ate too many soy nuts before going to bed.

The sayings on McDonalds bags and cups can be so incredibly stupid that it is shockingly funny. A plastic cup I have says, “i can’t get enough water… i’m lovin’ it” (sic). It shows two guys in a kayak shaped out of the words “i’m lovin’ it” in many different languages. Who the heck thought of this one?! They are surrounded by water!
Maybe he is referring to the fact that since we drink so much soda we are headed for a bad case of kidney stones. Sometimes I think the agencies that think this crap up are working against their clients! And they are also reinforcing crappy grammar because they cannot find the flippin’ shift key on the stinkin’ keyboard!

Okay, I feel better now.

By the way, I drink more water and I use that stupid cup as my water cup.

I am one of those people who looks closely at how things are designed. I can tell when there is a change in something.

I recently brought some McDonalds food home, sat in my comfy contemplation chair and ate it. I am one of those people who unfolds his napkin completely before using it and I noticed something strange. Not only was the fold on the outside asymmetrical, but the fold on the inside was as well. At first I thought it was a flaw in the napkin, but then I saw that all the other napkins in the pile were the same way. This can’t be some kind of design thing to make it more functional, because it felt weird. It struck me as a way to skimp on two inches of paper down the right edge of the napkin in order to save money.

I envisioned some meeting at the McDonalds World Headquarters in Oak Park, Illinois where they discussed ways to save money. Someone got the idea to trim the napkin by two inches and fold it in an offset way to make it appear the same size as the napkins have always been. Wow! What a great idea, give the poor suckers less napkin to wipe their mouths and clean up the soda junior spilled all over the car!

It’s called downsizing, corporations love it. They will down size a product (or the workforce) and the person who came up with the idea gets a bonus, the stock price goes up, but the customers and employees suffer.

When a bottle, can or box of your favorite product appears on the store shelf with a bold new package design, one thing you may not notice is that they put a little less on the inside and they charge the same price. People don’t like paying more for a can of beans, but the corporations discovered that they can just put less in each can and charge the same. The consumer usually doesn’t notice the drop in quantity because they are distracted by the new logo or a slightly different shape of the package. The thousands of dollars they spent on the package redesign will pay for itself many times over in added profits.

Just make it smaller, but make it appear the same size and save a penny or two. Over time those pennies add up to some real money.

Wow, snow is gently falling outside and it is really pretty. I moved to the living room so I can watch it as I type this. It gives me a good feeling to sit here next to the window in my warm house with my cozy PowerBook watching the flakes fall.

In other news, my internal clock is really flipped. I was sick a couple of weeks ago and right after I got sick, I quit my job. I was about to quit anyways, so I decided to quit then because was easier than calling in sick every day and then quitting.

So I stayed in bed for a week. I would get up to try to eat around noon and then go to the office at Belly Acres for a few hours because I was bored from laying around sick all day and night. I think I had a severe cold because I was hurting and sneezy and ran a fever.

So I have been struggling to get my internal back on track, but I am also challenged by my Romanian studies. I try to get up in the morning to study, but usually I end up studying at night and keep going until 3 or 4 in the morning. Then I wake up at 10 or 11 and study a bit more and then eat and go to the office in the afternoons.

Saturday I was struggling to find a place to study, so I decided to go to my favorite local coffee shop and study there. I get there and find a table and after I got settled in, I quickly downed my first cup of coffee. It was nice to enjoy something warm on a cold day (it was 8º outside) so I ordered a refill. I was able to get a lot of work done, I ordered another refill. Then I ordered an apple soda and kept working for a while and I decided to leave around 9.

I got home and I realized I was really wired. While I was working at Neiman Marcus, I would have two cups of coffee in the morning and two in the evening and have no trouble sleeping at night because I had built up a high tolerance for caffeine. When I got sick, I didn’t drink any coffee for over a week and I realize now that besides a diet Pepsi and a cup of coco each day, I haven’t been drinking too many caffeinated beverages. It is amazing how my tolerance fell so quickly.

I was up most of the night and I ended up sleeping all day. Now I am sitting here at 4 am and I haven’t been to bed yet. At least the snow is pretty.

I stick a finger in my belly button, and pull out a bit of lint everyday. It doesn’t matter what color shirt I am wearing, the lint is always the same dark gray color. I was thinking about saving it and someday making a hat out of it. It would be a great achievement of frugality, and kind of gross.

Maybe I could start a belly button lint recycling initiative. I am sure many people have belly button lint that they need to get rid of and we are unnecessarily putting tons of the stuff in the landfill every year. I wonder what other stuff we throw away that should be recycled?

This painting is very famous not because of the subject matter, but because of the technical process used to create it.

The thing about this painting is that most people are interested in the technical details and not the subject. So when I went into the room to look at it, there were 15 people all crammed up next to the canvas blocking the view.

When I first look at a work of art, I usually ask, “what is the artist trying to tell me.” So it seems to me that if Georges Seurat wanted me to pay attention to the subject, then he failed. If he wanted to tell me that lots of little different colored dots can make up better color, then he succeded.