September 1, 1939

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September 1, 1939

Parker J. Palmer

W.H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939” was written in response to Germany’s invasion of Poland and the start of World War II. I was six months old at the time, so I’ve been watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the same horrific sense of deja vu so many of us feel.

Now in my 80s and weary of war, it’s tempting to say, “This is where I came in,” and leave the theatre so I don’t have to watch this film again. But no. I’m posting this poem this morning to remind myself that Auden had it right:

  • All I have is a voice. But that voice gives me a particle of power that many do not have. I must use it or lose it, use it in support of the common good.
  • I must work with others to “undo the folded lie”—the lie that might makes right, that “efficient authoritarianism” is better than “messy democracy,” a lie that now flourishes in my own country.
  • “No one exists alone… We must love one another or die.” Those words have been true as long as our species has been on the face of the earth. Anyone who thinks otherwise is massively deluded.
  • We may be “defenceless under the night,” but we never lack for opportunities to “flash out wherever the just exchange their messages” and “show an affirming flame.” In every way we can, let us say no to the night and yes to whatever brings light.

[Art work by Normal Rockwell, plus (1) Hank WIllis Thomas and (2) Eric Gottesman whose “For Freedoms” project (3) is updating older works of art: (1) https://tinyurl.com/y74eh6gk (2) https://tinyurl.com/yd2xl8ua (3) https://tinyurl.com/ybzn66f5]

The Butterfly Effect

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Why there are no Parallel Universes

The Multiverse has become a hotly discussed theory in physics in recent decades. I won’t get into the details of that, in part because I am not qualified to do so, but it all has to do with the mathematics of the Big Bang and the Initial Singularity. In a nutshell The Multiverse is a consequence of an infinite number of ongoing Big Bang events.

The Smoking Gun for “The Butterfly Effect”

Physicists have speculated that if there are an infinite number of universes, all governed by the same physical and mathematical laws, there must also be an infinite number of parallel universes. In these parallel unverses alternate versions of ourselves live identical, and nearly identical lives. This humble, mostly ignorant, layman, begs to differ. It all has to do with the picture of the cosmic microwave background radiation, CMBR, from the Big Bang taken by the Planck satellite in 2013.

CMBR, the ultimate manifestation of 'The Butterfly Effect'

When that cosmic microwave background radiation was first viewed it looked uniform and featureless. But with the highly sensitive instruments of the Planck Satellite the image was enhanced and it turned out that there were subtle temperature variations.

According to our current understanding of physics we have Einstein’s world of universal physics and the quantum world of subatomic physics. Universal physics, the physics that allows us to understand the movement of very big bodies, such as planets, stars and galaxies, are understood and calculated using Einstein’s laws of relativity. The mathematics of quantum mechanics is how we understand and interact with the mechanics of the extremely small, subatomic particles. At this time physicists have been unable to reconcile those two sets of equations.

However, there was a time when this was not the case. When you look at that famous picture of the CMBR the subtle differences in temperature are a product of the randomness of quantum mechanics, and they are what lead to the structure we see in our universe, and this proves that the “butterfly effect” is real. The “butterfly effect” is the idea that seemingly insignificant actions, such as random quantum fluctuations, can have enormous consequences. This was most famously expressed in the short story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, first published in 1952.

The Infinitely Random Nature of Quantum Mechanics

The thing is that the motions of subatomic particles, as expressed in the theories of quantum mechanics, are all random. And they aren’t just random, they are infinitely random. Their movements are expressed as probabilities, but there is no subatomic grid for them to snap to, like pixels on a monitor. So while the motions of subatomic particles can be reliably predicted to fall within a certain range a certain percentage of the time, their actual positions in spacetime are infinitely random, and the more precise your measuring tools are, the more this becomes apparent.

The only conclusion you can draw from this is that parallel universes are simply not a mathematical possibility. You have an almost impossible to quantify number of subatomic particles, each with an infinite number of potential positions, even if the multiverse is infinite, and even if those random quantum fluctuations only determine the structure of the given universe, there will be no parallel universes, it simply isn’t mathematically possible. Every universe is distinct, and unique.

Certainly there will be an infinite number of universes with similar characteristics, and similar structures, but none of them will be identical, or even close to being identical. The other interesting logical conclusions that can be drawn from are, that no matter how much you know, there is always more to learn, and no matter what happens, the multiverse will never reach the end of probabilities or possibilities.

There will always be surprises in an infinite multiverse.