Quantum Entanglement Explained: (Part II) Multiverses?

Hi there, and welcome back to the Part II of our series explaining quantum entanglement. If you haven’t read our previous edition about superposition, I strongly suggest going back and reading that one first. Assuming you already have, let’s continue from where we left off.

Last time, we explored the famous thought experiment Schrödinger’s Cat, a great example of superposition. Superposition and quantum entanglement could make future computing much faster and more efficient. But never forget traditional computers because they’re equally crucial. Quantum computing only calculates entire equations faster, but not always the single terms of an expression.

Currently, we know comparatively more information than we did decades ago. So what’s stopping us from making quantum computers that can effectively handle large amounts of qubits? It’s not because of a lack of knowledge. There are physical limitations to effectively computing entangled qubits. Quantum entangled qubits are delicate, and a slight difference in their environment or collision with another particle could cause decoherence, resulting in the malfunction of the entangled qubits. That could be very troubling since malfunction could mean calculating wrong. That’s why all quantum computers and such experiments get done in super low temperatures and ultra-clean environments, at least for now. However, if we want to make quantum computing and entanglement technology available more widely, someday, we need to find new ways to keep the entangled state of particles constant. Anyway, is computing the only goal of quantum entanglement at all? Maybe not.

You see, back to our example with Schrödinger’s Cat, before you opened the box, the whole thing was entangled together in a superposition. Could it be that when you saw the outcome of the cat, you got intertwined in the result too? That could suggest that parallel worlds exist. In one universe, there is a you who opened the box in Schrödinger’s experiment and saw a dead cat. Meanwhile, a separate, identical you who saw a living cat would be split and live on a timeline branching out from the initial timeline before you opened that box.

Even further, does that imply that the cat in this experiment is immortal? Because there would always be at least one version of the cat alive. Only that version of the cat would remember his past. To him, he never died at all. And so quantum entanglement bends and makes the universe as we know it more absurd, opening new possibilities. If this branching theory of a multiverse is indeed true, it would also mean that every decision you made would mean splitting into another universe, where you chose another option opposite of the option you chose in this universe. Is your mind starting to explode? Quantum entanglement makes understanding as we know it tangled! Positively, if multiverses do exist, you shouldn’t regret a past decision since a parallel version of you would have chosen that other decision and explored new possibilities.

And it doesn’t end there. In theory, if you got entangled in the experiment, and parallel universes exist, you could also travel to other universes. Some scientists suggest that black holes act like portals, teleporting you to a different version of our universe.

Multiverses may exist and get split with each decision you make. If that were also the case millions or billions of years ago, that could mean that slight changes never enabled life to evolve as it is now. Maybe in another version of the universe, dinosaurs were not wiped out by an asteroid and established an intelligent civilization. The Big Bang that resulted in the start of time could have been two old, parallel universes colliding. We may never know what more secrets outer space hides for us or whether our every action entangles us with that outcome, splitting our timeline into separate sub-time-lines.

For all we know, we shouldn’t explore that many possibilities. The wiser choice could be to continue current developments and one day make a fully functional mega-quantum-computer using our knowledge about quantum entanglement. Who knows? Working hard could mean you would be the next person to contribute to humankind and maybe even win a Nobel Prize! But don’t get pressured because chances are that a version of you in another universe did just that. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading, and remember to like and subscribe to not miss out on future updates.