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[5]

The Many Worlds Interpretation

Nebogipfel made to speak, but Moses held up his hand. “No — let me; I want to see if I’ve got it straightened out. Look here: You imagine the world is made up, pretty much, of atoms, don’t you? You don’t know the composition of these things, for they are far too fine to see, but that’s pretty much all there is to it: a lot of little hard Particles bouncing around like billiard balls.”

I frowned at this over-simplification. “I think you should remember who you’re talking to.”

“Oh — let me do this my own way, man! Follow me closely, now: for I have to tell you that this view of things is wrong, in every particular.”

I frowned. “How so?”

“To begin with, you can put aside your Particle — for there is no such animal. It turns out that — despite the confidence of Newton — one can never tell, precisely, where a Particle is, or where it is heading.”

“But if one had microscopes fine enough, surely, to inspect a Particle, any degree of accuracy one desired—”

“Put it aside!” he commanded. “There is a fundamental limitation on measurement — called the Uncertainty Principle, I gather — which places a sort of bottom level to such exercises.

“We have to forget about any definiteness about the world, you see. We must think in terns of Probability — the chance of finding a physical object at such-and-such a place, with a speed of so-and-so — et cetera. There’s a sort of fuzziness about things, which—”

I said bluntly, “But look here — let’s suppose I perform some simple experiment. I will measure, at some instant, the position of a Particle — with a microscope, of an accuracy I can name. You’ll not deny the plausibility of such an experiment, I hope. Well, then: I have my measurement! Where’s the uncertainty in that?”

“But the point is,” Nebogipfel put in, “there is a finite chance that if you were able to go back and repeat the experiment, you would find the Particle in some other place — perhaps far removed from the first location…”

The two of them kept up the argument in this vein for some time.

“Enough,” I said. “I concede the point, for the sake of the discussion. But what is the relevance for us?”

“There is — will be — a new philosophy called the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, “Nebogipfel said, and the sound of his queer, liquid voice, delivering such a striking phrase, sent shivers along my spine. “There is another ten or twenty years to elapse before the crucial papers are published — I remember the name of Everett…”

“It’s like this,” Moses said. “Suppose you have a Particle which can be in just two places — here or there, we will say — with some chance associated with each place. All right? Now you take a look with your microscope, and find it here…”

“According to the Many Worlds idea,” Nebogipfel said, “History splits into two when you perform such an experiment. In the other History, there is another you — who has just found the object there, rather than here.”

“Another History?”

Moses said, “With all the reality and consistency of this one.”

He grinned. “There is another you there is an infinite number of ’you’s’ — propagating like rabbits at every moment!”

“What an appalling thought,” I said. “I thought two were more than enough. But look, Nebogipfel, couldn’t we tell if we were being split up in this way?”

“No,” he said, “because any such measurement, in either History, would have to come after the split. It would be impossible to measure the consequences of the split itself.”

“Would it be possible to detect if these other Histories were there? — or for me to travel there, to meet another of this sheaf of twin selves you say I have?”

“No,” Nebogipfel said. “Quite impossible. Unless—”

“Yes?”

“Unless some of the tenets of Quantum Mechanics prove to be false.”

Moses said, “You can see why these ideas could help us make sense of the paradoxes we have uncovered. If more than one History can indeed exist—”

“Then causality violations are easily dealt with,” Nebogipfel said. “Look: suppose you had returned through time with a gun, and shot Moses summarily.” Moses paled a little at this. Nebogipfel went on: “So there we have a classic Causality Paradox in its simplest terms. If Moses is dead, he will not go on to build the Time Machine, and become you — and so he cannot travel back in time to do the murder. But if the murder does not take place, Moses lives on to build the machine, travels back — and kills his younger self. And then he cannot build the machine, and the murder cannot be committed, and—”

“Enough,” I said. “I think we understand.”

“It is a pathological failure of causality,” Nebogipfel said, “a loop without termination.

“But if the Many Worlds idea is right, there is no paradox. History splits in two: in one edition, Moses lives; in the second, he dies. You, as a Time Traveler, have simply crossed from one History into the other.”

“I see it,” I said in wonder. “And surely this Many Worlds phenomenon is precisely what we have witnessed, Nebogipfel and I — we have already watched the unfolding of more than one edition of History…” I felt enormously reassured by all this — for the first time, I saw that there might be a glimmer of logic about the blizzard of conflicting Histories which had hailed about my head since my second launch into time! Finding some sort of theoretical structure to explain things was as important to me as finding solid ground beneath his feet might be to a drowning man; though what practical application we might make of all this I could not yet imagine.

And — it occurred to me — if Nebogipfel was right, perhaps I was not responsible for the wholesale destruction of Weena’s History after all. Perhaps, in some sense, that History still existed! I felt a little of my guilt and grief lift at the thought.

Now the smoking-room door clattered open, and in bustled Filby. It was not yet nine in the morning; Filby was unwashed and unshaven, and a battered dressing gown clung to his frame. He said to me: “There’s a visitor for you. That scientist chap from the Air Ministry Bond mentioned…”


I pushed back my chair and stood. Nebogipfel returned to his studies, and Moses looked up at me, his hair still tousled. I regarded him with some concern; I was beginning to realize that he was taking all this dislocation in time quite hard. “Look,” I said to him, “it seems I have to go to work. Why don’t you come with me? I’d appreciate your insights.”

He smiled without humor. “My insights are your insights,” he said. “You don’t need me.”

“But I’d like your company… After all, this may be your future. Don’t you think you’ll be better off if you stir yourself a bit?

His eyes were deep, and I thought I recognized that longing for home which was so strong in me. “Not today. There will be time… perhaps tomorrow.” He nodded to me. “Be careful.”

I could think of no more to say — not then.

I let Filby lead me to the hall. The man waiting for me at the open front door was tall and ungainly, with a shock of rough, graying hair. A trooper stood in the street behind him.

When the tall chap saw me, he stepped forward with a boyish clumsiness incongruous in such a big man. He addressed me by name, and pumped my hand; he had strong, rather battered hands, and I realized that this was a practical experimenter — perhaps a man after my own heart! “I’m glad to meet you so glad,” he said. “I work on assignment to the DChronW that’s the Directorate of Chronic-Displacement Warfare, of the Air Ministry.” His nose was straight, his features thin, and his gaze, behind wire-rimmed spectacles, was frank. He was clearly a civilian, for, beneath the universal epaulets and gas-mask cache, he wore a plain, rather dowdy suit, with a striped tie and yellowing shirt beneath. He had a numbered badge on his lapel. He was perhaps fifty years old.

“I’m pleased,” I said. “Although I fear your face isn’t familiar…”

“Why on earth should it be? I was just eight years old when your prototype CDV departed for the future… I apologize! — that’s ’Chronic Displacement Vehicle.’ You may get the hang of all these acronyms of ours — or perhaps not! I never have; and they say Lord Beaverbrook himself struggles to remember all the Directorates under his Ministry.

“I’m not well-known — not nearly so famous as you! Until a while ago, I worked as nothing more grand than Assistant Chief Designer for the Vickers-Armstrong Company, in the Weybridge Bunker. When my proposals on Time Warfare began to get some notice, I was seconded to the headquarters of the DChronW, here at Imperial. Look,” he said seriously, “I really am so glad you’re here — it’s a remarkable chance that brought you. I believe that we — you and I — could forge a partnership that might change History — that might resolve this damned War forever!”

I could not help but shudder, for I had had my fill of changing History already. And this talk of Time Warfare — the thought of my machine, which had already done so much damage, deployed deliberately for destruction! The idea filled me with a deep dread, and I was unsure how to proceed.

“Now — where shall we talk?” he asked. “Would you like to retire to my room at Imperial? I have some papers which—”

“Later,” I said. “Look — this may seem odd to you — but I’m still newly arrived here, and I’d appreciate seeing a little more of your world. Is that possible?”

He brightened. “Of course! We can have our talk on the way.” He glanced over his shoulder at the soldier, who nodded his permission.

“Thank you,” I said, “Mr.—”

“Actually, it’s Dr. Wallis,” he said. “Barnes Wallis.”


[4] The House in Queen ’s Gate Terrace | The Time Ships | [6] Hyde Park