You might be unkillable, impossible to delete out of existence.
If one of the most exciting ideas about physics quantum immortality, is true,
To test this idea, we'll put a nuclear bomb in your living room, but more on that later.
This is real science happening around one of the most successful theories of physics.
To understand why we need to tell you a story, the story of the smallest parts in the universe atoms and fundamental particles.
With everyday objects, things intuitively make sense.
If you kick a marble 10 times with the same force and at the same angle, it always lands in the same spot.
But if you kick an electron 10 times exactly the same way, it shows up in different places.
On the most fundamental level of reality, randomness is the rule.
The story that solves this is called quantum mechanics.
Simplified, it goes something like this.
A particle like an electron is not like a tiny marble, but like a shapeshifter, a diffuse thing we call a wave that ebbs and flows.
But to make it much weirder, it's not a wave of matter or energy, but a wave of probability, an immaterial essence that has values between 0 and 100.
What does that even mean?
Quantum mechanics doesn't really tell us much about the electron.
It only tells us how this entity that we call an electron behaves on average.
Say you shoot an electron gun at your apartment.
You shoot it 100 times.
80 times the electron shows up in your living room and 20 times in your kitchen.
So the probability wave of our electron is 80% in the living room and 20% in the kitchen.
What's deeply annoying is that this story of probability waves works insanely well in reality.
It's not just some brainchild that only works on paper.
Scientists have tested it in countless experiments, and it works every single time.
It explains how a lot of real things work, from information passing through microchips to the atoms fusing in the center of stars.
And yet, how can this story make sense?
All of our other scientific stories give us a mental picture of the things they're describing.
A sphere of iron at the center of Earth, an elastic fabric of space.
But a wave of probability?
What's that even supposed to look like?
Quantum mechanics doesn't tell us anything about the electron itself, what it looks like, how it moves or how it tastes.
But if our story doesn't describe the electrons themselves, what does it describe and how does it potentially make you immortal?
What is the quantum story really about?
Scientists have been debating this for a century.
They've come up with tons of ideas we can't cover here, but there are two popular schools of thought.
We'll call them linguists and literary critics.
They're screaming and arguing over what the quantum story really means.
The position of the linguists is shut up and calculate.
They basically claim that quantum mechanics is not a story about reality, but just a kind of grammar for the theoretical language of the universe.
With this language, we can predict experiments, nothing else.
If there is no story, there's no point in asking what the story says about the electron.
Whether electrons are tiny marbles or clouds, waves of negative charge, or Detective Pikachu is missing the point.
Quantum mechanics doesn't enable you to visualize any electrons.
All you can do is to run experiments.
And physics is all about experiments, not about creating mental pictures for us.
So shut up, stop imagining fairy tales and just use the probability wave to calculate things.
Follow the grammar, ignore the plot.
No scream.
The literary critics read between the lines.
There's a hidden meaning here.
They are many worldlians and they're convinced that quantum mechanics is a story about reality and they want to interpret the story.
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is not the same as the multiverse, by the way, which is a whole different can of worms, but we'll get to that another time.
The many-worldlians think that the universe is an infinitely complex quantum state where all physically possible outcomes coexist simultaneously.
If the probability wave of your electron is split 80 to 20 between your living room and the kitchen, that means that the electron is split in a similar way, that there are five versions of the electron.
Four of them are going to the living room and one to the kitchen.
But it isn't just the electron that splits.
You are observing the electron, so there are five versions of you too.
Four of them see the electron in the living room and one in the kitchen.
Each of these different versions of you and the electron are equally real, equally true.
And all of them exist at this moment in your house.
But they can't communicate or interact in any way, so they're totally invisible to each other.
Which means that whoever you are right now, you are just one of your versions, experiencing just one thing either seeing the electron in the living room or in the kitchen.
Many worlds means that all physically possible worlds are coexisting right here, right now, but independently of each other, like the branches of a tree.
And there are a lot of them.
Every possible quantum process means there are other possible worlds.
A radioactive atom decays, another world exists where it didn't.
A cosmic ray hits one of your cells, another world exists where the ray just passed through.
Each second, bazillions upon bazillions of new worlds exist on top of each other.
Stop it, shout the linguists.
If these worlds can't interact with each other, we can't check whether they exist.
This is not science, so please shut up and calculate.
Wait, there is a way to find out.
But to do it, you'll have to die a few hundred times.
And maybe prove that you're immortal.
The ultimate experiment.
All we need are two electron detectors connected to a nuclear bomb in your living room.
If the detector in your living room is activated, the nuke explodes.
If the one in the kitchen is activated, you're safe.
Now sit on the nuke and have your brave assistant shoot the electron gun.
There are two ways this can go.
There's a 20% chance the electron lands in the kitchen and you survive, and an 80% chance you die.
Okay, let's shoot.
Beep.
Oh, lucky you.
The electron landed in the kitchen.
Let's try once more. beep, and once again, beep, and another 100 times.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
If there is only one universe, you'll die fairly soon.
Sooner rather than later, the electron will trigger the nuke, and you'll be instantly vaporized.
But if the Many Worlds interpretation is true, then every time your assistant shoots the gun there are five versions of you and four instantly die.
Only one of your versions is alive, and there's only one thing you can experience, your survival.
It doesn't matter how many times you try, From your perspective, you'll survive every time.
At first, it will seem like luck, but at some point, your luck will become near impossible.
In a universe with just one reality, your odds of surviving 100 times in a row are about 1 in 10.
Duo-vision-tillion a 1, followed by 70 zeros.
So if you did the experiment 100 times and you're still here, the universe just whispered its deepest secret to you.
Yes, you killed hundreds of versions of yourself.
But you now know for sure that the many worlds are true, because you are still here experiencing things.
And that you're kind of immortal.
Okay, well, all that might be a bit overwhelming.
Let's break it down again.
The cosmic secret.
If every possible quantum process always happens in some branch, then this doesn't only mean that there are almost, but not quite, infinite versions of you, but there's always a you that gets insanely lucky.
A tumor starts, but a cosmic ray kills it before it spreads.
A bolt of lightning strikes at you, but a quantum fluke makes it miss by a meter.
A washing machine falls from a roof, but all its atoms quantum tunnel through your body.
No matter how extremely high the likelihood is that you'll die, there may always be a branch in which you survive.
So, should you start wingsuit flying today?
Well, not so fast.
For every version of you that survives, bazillions don't.
And all those versions of you are just as real as you are right now watching this video.
So if you care about the current version of yourself, you should care just as much about all the versions still waiting to be and their loved ones.
In other words, if you see a washing machine falling, better move away and save as many of your versions as you can.
The more universes exist with you in them, the better.
Your existence makes the universe richer.
And there's another good reason to move.
While the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics feels beautiful and elegant, that doesn't make it true.
We don't know if it's true, and so far no literary critic sat on a nuke to risk being wrong.
If the shut up and calculate people are right, there is just one world, just one version of you.
And if the washing machine hits you, you are done for.
But wouldn't this be nice to know?
If the many worlds idea is true, then no matter how unlucky you get, you will always know that somewhere you are lucky.
Quantum mechanics is an amazing tool to explore different realities.
But what about this reality?
Ground News, the sponsor of this video, can help you navigate our media universe, where every news outlet has their own perspective on the world.
In a nutshell, Ground News is a website and app designed to make reading the news easier and more data-driven.
Every day they collect articles from around the world and break each story down visually.
You see reporting bias, reliability and ownership, all backed by three independent media monitoring organizations.
Take this story about a new concept for a quantum computer.
Right away you can see that over 90 news outlets reported on it.
Then you can see where these outlets lean politically and how reliable they generally are.
They even compare headlines to see how these potential biases might affect framing.
Some media outlets frame it as a major leap forward for IBM as a business and highlight the commercial potential for quantum computing.
Others focus more on the science itself and use precise language to emphasize the technical challenges that were overcome.
This way you get to see how headlines alone can affect your perception and decide for yourself if this finding is the future or just a fad.
If you'd like to give them a try, go to ground.news.com or scan the QR code on the screen.
Using this link saves you 40 off an unlimited access subscription and directly supports our channel.
We think the people at Ground News do a really important job.
If you can never know all quantum versions of yourself, better make sure this version has the full view of the horizon.
