Paintings of Terror
Chapter 268: Quantum Immortality

Ke Xun shared his thoughts with Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense their silence, as if they were suddenly enlightened.

“You know,” Zhu Haowen finally spoke with a somewhat peculiar tone, “to mock the orthodox faction’s ‘uncertainty principle,’ Schrödinger proposed the ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ theory. At that time, it indeed put the orthodox physicists in a difficult position because they couldn’t explain the superposition state of life and death of the cat. tBVfsi

“This problem became a puzzle that countless physicists wanted to solve. It wasn’t until a physicist named Everett came up with the Many-worlds Interpretation, commonly known as parallel worlds.

“Using the double-slit experiment as an example, when a single electron is emitted, how does it simultaneously pass through both slits? The Many-worlds Interpretation suggests that when the electron passes through the double slits, two worlds with superimposed states are created. In one world, the electron goes through the left slit, and in the other world, the electron goes through the right slit.

“Thus, the wave function doesn’t need to collapse to randomly choose whether it goes through the left or right slit. Because there are multiple universes, in the world of Universe A, the electron goes through the left slit, while in Universe B, people observe the electron going through the right slit.

“So, this theory can be used to explain Schrödinger’s Cat. According to Everett, the two cats, one alive and one dead in the box, both exist in the real world. It’s just that they are in two parallel and different worlds, displaying a superposition of states. LHAdfq

“Using this to explain Cheng Shi’s suicide, then it becomes quite easy to understand. Cheng Shi treated himself as Schrödinger’s Cat. When he was alive, he lost his son, so he put himself in a state of superposition. At this point, parallel universes were created. The dead him existed in this universe, and the living him went to another universe to find his son, who’s still alive there.”

“Wait a minute,” Ke Xun said, “Cheng Shi died in the manner of Schrödinger’s Cat, but his son didn’t. He jumped directly from the building. How does that superimpose?”

“The principle is the same,” Zhu Haowen explained, “Replace Schrödinger’s Cat with a person, and the hammer with a gun. If a person shoots themselves, because the bullet is composed of particles with the property of wave functions, then there will always be a very, very small possibility that all the particles will collapse into one particular state—namely, they all avoided the person’s head, ensuring the person remains unharmed.

“Although the possibility of this situation is extremely minimal, due to the existence of the Many-worlds Interpretation, every universe displays one of the states of superposition. Then, in billions of parallel universes, there will always be one universe where ‘all particles that make up the bullet avoided the person’s head.’ yLBMnY Sᴇaʀᴄh the NƟvelFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

“The same goes for other methods of suicide, whether it’s jumping off a building, cutting wrists, poisoning, electrocution, or hanging. There will always be some parallel universe where the person is still alive. In a certain universe, the person committing suicide can never die.

“This situation is called ‘quantum immortality.’

Sᴇarch the ɴøvᴇlFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.