Universe multiplication, revisited.

[jmtorres]

Okay, at the beginning of the series, Quinn says that no one knows how many universes there are, and tosses out the number 6. So we'll do these calculations with 6 as the base point even though it becomes obvious that there are far more than 6, because it's easier to see the orders of magnitude if you start with a small number.

Before anyone ever slid, even alternate Quinns, there were 6 universes.

When you slide, you have the possibility of hitting any of the universes in existence. But you can only hit one of them.

However, the reason there are more than one universe in the first place is that the universe divides over possibilities such as this.

So the multiverse divides into 6 bundles, each containing identical copies of the 6 original universes up until the point of slide. And the sliders themselves are divided into 6 copies of themselves, sliding to a different universe in each bundle. In Bundle 1, the sliders reach Universe A. In Bundle 2, the sliders reach Universe B. In Bundle 3, the sliders reach Universe C. In Bundle 4, the sliders reach Universe D. In Bundle 5, the sliders reach Universe E. In Bundle 6, the sliders reach universe F. Which means one (un?)lucky set of sliders will land in their home universe.

Now there are 36 (6^2) universes in the multiverse. 1/6 of the have been visited by sliders, which means that the next time a slider slides, he has a one in 6 chance of hitting a universe that a copy of his sliding self is in or has just been in. Our slider also has a 1 in 6 chance of hitting any of the 6 copies of his home universe--although one will be occupied by the version of him that didn't go anywhere, so make that 5 (6-1) in 36.

Here's the catch: The next time anyone in any of the universes slides, 36 bundles of 36 universes each will be created to handle all the possiblities, resulting in 1, 296 (6^2^2 or 6^4) universes.

But it won't just be one set of sliders sliding. All 6 sets of sliders in the multiverse of 36 universes will slide (except possibly the crazy kids who landed in their home universe on the first slide and figured it was a machine that did nothing). If all 6 sets of sliders slide simultaneously, the resultant number of universes will be 2, 176, 782, 336 (6^12). If they do it sequentially, it will be 4, 011, 991, 914, 547, 600, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 approximately (6^128). (If the one set who didn't go anywhere doesn't try to slide again, and only 5 (6-1) sets of sliders slide, it's only 60, 466, 176 (6^[(6-1)*2]) and 63, 340, 286, 662, 973, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 approximately (6^[2^(6-1)*2]), respectively).

Fortunately, 1/6 of them will still be copies of the home universe, so while the multiverse has been growing dramatically, the chances of hitting home remain slightly less than 1 in 6.

This does not account for InterQuinnocity, ie, the effect of a slider teaching non-sliding selves to slide independently. There is no easy way to calculate how often sliders will meet versions of themselves who have the necessary background to understand sliding, or how often sliders will willingly pass on the knowledge, given what they should know about the drastic increase in the number of universes when any slider or set of slider slides.

Now, go back to the beginning and replace all bolded 6s with infinity, which is a much more likely starting number of universes.

My favorite resulting sentence is: "Fortunately, 1/∞ of them will still be copies of the home universe, so while the multiverse has been growing dramatically, the chances of hitting home remain slightly less than 1 in ∞." Considering that 1 in ∞ is, for practical purposes, zero, the sliders are, as I've said, fucked up the ass.

Comments

[cadetdru.livejournal.com]

...damn, I love you.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

*grins* I love you too.

[kernezelda]

Are you trying to explode people's brains? Can't we just have random interQuinn sex and leave it at that?

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

My point is, we can have infinite interQuinn orgies.

For every unique universe set--the set of universe A, say--there is one copy of it which every sliding!Quinn has slid to, and they never get out of it. Oh, infinite copies of Quinn slide to infinite other universes, but one of the copies always slides right back to this universe.

It's the planet of infinite Quinns. All having sex with each other in infinite permutations.

Here's the part that's brain-explodey. There are an infinite number of unique universe sets. Ergo there are an infinite number of planets of infinite Quinns.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

The Sliders Revolutions!

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

*laughing* But slightly less sinister. Because he's cute.

[kernezelda]

Can you believe Jerry O'Connell played Vern in "Stand By Me"?

[kernezelda]

Bah, you're attempting to distract me with pretty boy/boy/girl/it sex, but you're still talking science. Hmpf. That's it. I'm going home.

Frankly, one of my favorite eps was the one where Quinn met his female alternate. I kept thinking, "Do it, do it, do it!"

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Hah!

But why wait for the femQuinn? I was Quinnslashing in the *pilot.*

[kernezelda]

'Cause then they could breed! What do you call a baby born of two Quinns? It's not a clone, 'cause the genes are mixing - it's be like twins reproducing together. And I really liked the female Quinn. She was Eevviill.

[veritykindle.livejournal.com]

My favorite resulting sentence is: "Fortunately, 1/∞ of them will still be copies of the home universe, so while the multiverse has been growing dramatically, the chances of hitting home remain slightly less than 1 in ∞." Considering that 1 in ∞ is, for practical purposes, zero, the sliders are, as I've said, fucked up the ass.

Hee! But the thing is that if you replace all the 6s with infinity, then all your complicated calculations become unnecessary, because no matter how many times the sliders slide to a different world, and no matter how many worlds they "create", in a way, there will still be the same number of worlds -- there was an infinite number of words before, and there will be an infinite number of words after.

(Or rather, I am pretty sure there will be the same number of worlds. There *are* different sizes of infinity (there are more real numbers than there are integers, for example, even though there is an "infinite number" of both), but I'm pretty sure that in this case, the sliders going to different worlds is not going to change the size of the infinity. Hmmm... I could be wrong about that, though. I need to think about that some more. I am pretty sure set that is countably infinite to any finite power will still be countably infinite. I am not quite as sure about a countably infinite set raised to infinity... Or... Hmmm... Yes, this is probably going to take some more thought.)

But anyway, assuming that I'm right about the size of the infinity not changing, my point is that while you are right that the sliders are fucked in the ass, they aren't actually making things any *worse* for themselves by sliding. They were fucked in the ass the first time the slid, and they are still *just* as fucked in the ass after however many times they or any other sliders they teach will slide.

(Hee! This is math geek heaven, right here! :D)

[kernezelda]

O. M. G. I am going to go home and write Scorpius/John slash and forget all about this nightmarish mathematical torture.

[veritykindle.livejournal.com]

Oooh... Scorpius/John slash...

Hey, if I knew speaking about math would inspire you to write Scorpy/John I would have tried it sooner! Thanks for teaching me this trick, jmtorres. :P

Hee! Now my head is full of images of John trying to get away from Scorpy by inflicting "mathematical torture" on him. Scorpius would try to understand what John is saying, and then his head would explode, and John would be free. It's a perfect escape plan. It can't fail! (Except, of course, that Scorpy is as much of a math geek as John is, so he would probably understand anything John can thrown at him. But hey, what did you expect from a Crichton plan? *g*)

(Actually, now that I think about it, I think Spock used to do something similar with old Star Trek computers when they turned evil, didn't he? See? If Spock can do it, so can John. :P)

[kernezelda]

Kirk did it with Veeger. And with Norman. Confused the poor metal-brained bots.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Spock just tried to explode everyone's heads on a regular basis. How many tribbles are there now, Spock? "1,771,561. That's assuming one tribble, multiplying with an average litter of 10, producing a new generation every 12 hours
over a period of three days." And assuming none die (which some were!) and assuming there was only one to start off with.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

You poor baby.

*starts humming "I Believe The Answer is Six"*

[veritykindle.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure set that is countably infinite to any finite power will still be countably infinite.

Um... I meant "if you raise a set that is countably infinite to any finite power will still be countably infinite." Sorry about that. This is probably confusing enough without bringing bad grammar and typos into it... ;)

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure if you raise aleph null to aleph null, you get aleph one.

But that begs the question, is the pre-slide multiverse countable or uncountable? It's it's uncountable, then you're right, it doesn't matter. But I think it was countable. While I won't argue that decision-based universe splits were binary (that's ridiculous) I believe they were finite.

But if I argue that I have to explain how we got from many, many finite universe splits to infinite universes. That would be a function of time, I believe; in eternity, finite universe splits eventually produce infinite universes.

Which may mean at any finite time A after the multiverse came into existence, it has not yet achieved infinite universes, and, in essence, never will. So the sliders are dealing with really big numbers of finite universes rather than infinite universes, and are marginally less fucked up the ass.

The current idea I'm toying with is that the multiverse can only be subdivided a finite number of times, and when it reaches infinite subdivision, it collapses in on itself, folds down to one proto-multiverse, and then starts dividing again--a multidimensional model of the cyclic expanding/contracting universe. Which means that the sliders could actually be hastening the end of the universe--and we're back in buggery land :-)

[tomt64.livejournal.com]

The number 6 is a guess by Quinn. Since he never really understood the equation FULLY in the first place, this guess can't be counted on. Further, the experiences of the Sliders show that there are too many divirgent paths for the number 6 to be reasonably said to be the starting number of universes once sliding began. I stick by my theory that the number of universes is already there, and it is infinite, and many of them are exactly the same and haven't diverged yet, while many of them all diverged at the same point and haven't changed since.

In fact, it is pretty dumb luck that causes them to land on radically different worlds all the time, instead of landing on worlds that are so similar that it would be near impossible to tell how they are different.

As such, I still believe Sliding does not alter the number of universes in existence at all. Quinn's attempt to put a finite number on an infinite number of universes is a sheer lack of sufficient understanding of what he is doing.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Six is an example, not a realistic guess...

I don't think it's that far off to guess that they could be a finite number of universes. Try this idea on for size.

Just because universes can have coordinates does not necessarily imply that all of the infinite universes are pre-existing, already filling the slots. If you think of the coordinates as irrational numbers that can only be determined to a certain degree of accuracy--then say universe 1.42325267891 (except with more places) is virtually indistinguishable from universe 1.42325267892, or even 1.42325267893--the difference being the color of the hobo's eyes or whatever--then as long as you can set your equipment to the degree of accuracy needed for the difference to be indistinguishable to *you,* to 1.4232526789, then you land in a universe which may not be the very exact one you think it is but is close enough to make no bones about.

[tomt64.livejournal.com]

But the thing is that before the coordinates were inputted, you could "track" them, and show that this is the exact universe you targetted. This came about following one guy around and by recognizing sliding signatures. Thus, it becomes increasingly difficult to say that a civilaztion slid to Earth whatever, you followed this guy FROM earth whatever, then followed him BACK and saw the coordinates MATCHED and saw the same civilization who slid there was still there, etc etc. This can only be explained away by saying that there are many Slider groups with the same EXACT experiences and nothing is different. A coordinate system that uses "bad" numbers, by the way, would not land you where you wanted to be anyway.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

This can only be explained away by saying that there are many Slider groups with the same EXACT experiences and nothing is different.

That's part of the idea I put forth. The sliders get split into as many copies as there are universes, every time they slide.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll be able to fanwank explain the coordinate system better after I've seen the relevant episodes for myself. Watch this space for developments :)

[minotaurs.livejournal.com]

So, does Quinn/Quinn sex count as "Quinncest"?

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would have to be. "Quinnturbation" just sounds wrong.