Parallel Universes, Elvis and the Butterfly Effect
This is a discussion into the philosophy of Parallel Universes and a possible misconception of how they relate to our universe. Though we may never truly know what lies in them, we can imagine ......
What is The Butterfly Effect?
“The phenomenon whereby a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere, e.g., a butterfly flapping its wings in Rio de Janeiro might change the weather in Chicago” wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Or, more technically.. “The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. ...”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
The idea that a small change in the past can effect great changes in the future, is a tool used by science fiction writers describing the perils of time travel. The idea presented is that the present is a culmination of linked events from the past. The further back in time you effect a small change, the bigger the change will be in the present. If a time traveller went back in primordial time and stepped on a bug, he may have killed the bug that was a genetic ancestor of a larger bug which fed a certain mammal which evolved into another mammal, etc. The lack of that genetic sequence can change life as we know it now in unprecedented ways!
One can see that the further back in time one goes even the smallest change can create tremendous effects to our (present) time. While this concept may be a moot point given the probable impossibility of time travel, it is useful in conceptualizing how minute changes in the past can affect the future.
Infinity Doesn’t Make it Right
Have you ever been in an accident or a situation where the time difference of one or two seconds would have changed the outcome? There are countless interactions whose outcomes can be changed in the tiniest fraction of a second. It doesn’t take much to change a course of events. And if you were able to plot the profound changes in the creation of a universe, you would find that even in an infinity of universes, after 14 billion years of even the tiniest variation, no two universes would be alike. The confusion may arise from the term itself, Parallel Universes. Parallel is an implication that these universe are ‘side by side’ with us in location, not parallel in development. In an infinity of parallel universes there would be an infinity of variations.
Is Elvis Alive Over There?
A popular conception of parallel universes is that since they are infinite in number, the chances are that in one of those universes, Elvis is alive and still singing and doesn’t like peanut butter. However in thinking this over, given even the infinitude of parallel universes, Elvis exists only in this universe.
If you consider another similar parallel universe you will also have to conclude that it also started out with the Big Bang as did ours. Scientists have concluded that our universe was created by the most accidental of circumstances and conditions. Any slight difference would not have created our universe at all. The chances of two big bangs having the same exact pattern is impossible even in an infinity of universes. If you had two similar firecrackers, and recorded the explosion debris with high speed film and slowed it down, you would see variations in the explosion pattern. Any number of infinitesimal variations, from a few molecule’s difference in gun powder, to a microscopic change in the surrounding air density, would create a different explosion wave front. The further out from the center of the explosion the wave front traveled, and the more time that passed, the more those differences would be magnified.
The Big Bang is as far back as one can go in this universe’s creation. Now imagine a ‘butterfly effect’ that started then. Any variation then would have created profound effects to our present time. For example, if the ratio of matter and anti-matter was off by just a few percent, that in itself would result in an empty or very different universe. The distribution of matter, space and time would be different from one big bang to another, which in turn would determine the creation and formation of any number of galaxies.
Another parallel universe could not be exactly the same as ours and then, on August 16, 1977... Elvis didn’t die. A parallel universe would not mirror ours exactly and then, on August 16, 1977, it changed. The introduction of random changes started at the beginning of a universe, not billions of years later. Parallel universes are different from the moment of their inception, and as time rolls along, those differences are magnified. In an infinity of universes no universe would be created exactly the same as another. And if at the moment of creation there are variations, then those variations would be magnified billions times billions of times up to our present time.
Therefore it is a misconception to postulate that in another parallel universe, Elvis still lives.
Efrain Palermo
Exploring this topic brings up many interesting ideas and topics for discussion. I started up a forum to explore these possibilities, join in the discussions at