Chapter 27
Compton Wells School
Monday 19th October
8.04 a.m.
Markland shut off the engine and took a moment before getting out of the car. He’d spent the whole weekend thinking of little else other than two things. The apparitions he’d seen on Friday evening which had his mind in turmoil and the message Joan had left which filled him with hope. She hadn’t called during the weekend and Markland assumed that she’d been busy with her mother after the stroke.
He was about to open the car door, but noticed in his wing mirror, that a white Seat Arosa was pulling up alongside him. It was Jodie Standwick, the science teacher who had helped him when he fainted last week. She smiled at him through the car window and he gestured for her to get out before him.
“How are you? I hope you’re better than last week.”
“I’m fine, I must have had a funny turn, it was nothing serious,” lied Markland, knowing why he had become unwell.
Markland had been thinking about the meeting he’d had on Friday with Han, James and Howie. By coincidence, Jodie Standwick was just the person he wanted to talk to about an idea that had been gnawing away at him during the weekend.
“Jodie, do you have any spare time in your diary today? There’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“Yeah, sure. What would you like to talk about?”
“I have a science question.”
“I’m intrigued,” said the slightly built brunette teacher, with a ‘wake up and wear it’ haircut. She glanced at her watch, “my first lesson isn’t until ten, and Lawrence Hillier is taking my tutor group first thing, so we could chat now if you like ……. but on one condition.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’d love to find out what happened in Badock’s Wood. To be honest with you, I was rather excited when I found out you were working here.”
“Of course, I’d love to,” replied Markland with a half a smile. But Jodie sensed reluctance in his voice.
“Let’s head to the staff room, it should be empty this time of the morning,” suggested Jodie.
Markland washed out a couple of mugs and made two coffees. Jodie was a little in awe of him. She remembered being swept away with the story when it hit the news back in two thousand and twelve.
“So what’s your burning science question?” asked Jodie, stirring her coffee.
Markland thought about the best way to phrase his question, but wasn’t exactly sure what his question was.
“Is it possible for the same person to be in two, or perhaps more places at the same time?”
Jodie laughed as she placed the spoon on the table. She looked up, and saw he was serious.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure, I think what I am trying to ask is, could there be another me, or you, or anyone else for that matter living another life, but just a little bit differently. So essentially the same person living two different lives?”
Jodie’s eyes lit up.
“Are you talking about science fiction?”
“No, I’m hopefully referring to science fact.”
Markland noticed the young teacher becoming animated as she stirred her coffee for a second time.
“Like a parallel world?”
“No, I don’t think so, as I said I’m not talking about science fiction.”
“I think you’ll find that there is a lot of evidence to suggest parallel worlds exist. There’s a hell of a lot of maths to back the theories up too.”
Markland’s ears pricked up.
“Mr Garraway, have you ever heard of an American band called Eels?”
Markland thought for a second. He wasn’t sure where she was going with her question. He remembered a song from the mid-nineties that his daughter liked when she was a little girl.
“I vaguely recall they had a song that troubled the charts about twenty years ago.”
“They’re still going strong today. I’m a big fan.”
“What do Eels have to do with my question?”
“The singer of Eels, Mark Everett, had a famous father. Although I would bet my last pound that few people even know his name. But what he discovered has shaped film, literature, music…. you name it, the world is a different place because of him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Hugh Everett.”
Markland shook his head.
“Mark Everett is the son of physicist Hugh Everett. Hugh Everett came up with the theory of parallel worlds.”
Markland said nothing, which urged Jodie to continue.
“He’s up there with Einstein, but until fairly recently he’s not been taken too seriously.”
“Am I clever enough to understand?”
“Probably, if I keep things a simple, considering the subject matter.”
Jodie wriggled in her chair with excitement. She was never more at home then when she had someone’s full attention who wanted to know about science.
“Have you heard of Schrödinger's Cat?”
Markland nodded.
“It’s something to do with a cat whose been locked in a cage with something deadly, and it’s something about being dead and alive at the same time?”
“Very good,” said Jodie, as she hit the table with her hand, causing coffee to overflow from Markland’s full mug.
“You were almost bang on the money. But in simple terms, Schrödinger stated that if you place a cat, and something that could kill the cat, he suggested something radioactive, in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box, so until the box was opened, the cat was in a sense, both ‘dead and alive’".
“I’m lost already,” said Markland shaking his head.
“It’s about quantum mechanics,” said Jodie taking a sip of coffee. ”Physics can be divided into two types. Classic physics and quantum mechanics. Classic physics explains most physical interactions, like why a ball bounces when it drops. It can also be used to predict physical interactions, like what will happen when you drop a ball. However, there are some physical interactions which it does not explain, for instance, how light can be turned into electricity. Quantum mechanics provides a way for physicists to explain why these things happen.”
Markland wished he hadn’t asked the question, but Jodie was on a roll and he couldn’t stop her.
“The question now is, at the end of the cat experiment, is the cat alive or dead? Schrödinger says that, as long as the cage door is closed, the cat is both dead and alive. There is no way to know until the seal is broken and the door to the cage is opened. But by opening the door, the person is interfering with the experiment. The person, and the experiment have to be described with reference to each other. By looking at the cat the observer has influenced the experiment.”
Markland struggled to keep up. “So did Hugh Everett come up with the Schrödinger's Cat theory?”
“No,” laughed Jodie, “Erwin Schrödinger did. What Everett did was upset people by pooh poohing Schrödinger’s theory. What Everett did was to take away the role of the observer. Schrödinger says that his theory explains how something could be in two different states at the same time. The cat can be both dead and alive.”
Markland rubbed his forehead. “But what’s this got to do with my original question?”
“Sorry Markland, I seem to have run away with myself, I need to reign things back in,” chuckled Jodie.
“Everett had his own theory, which is now known as the many-worlds interpretation.”
Markland felt like calling a halt to the conversation. He was a clever man, but Jodie was leaving him standing. Even though his eyes were glazing over, she carried on regardless.
“Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual world or universe. In layman's terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large, perhaps i
nfinite number of universes and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes.”
At last Markland grasped what she was saying.
“So this does all go back to the sort of parallel world stories you watch on the Twilight Zone or Star Trek?”
Jodie nodded enthusiastically.
“What Everett says is that if you make a decision to do something, say for instance, if you decided not to punch me on the nose, the outcome would be different to if you did punch me on the nose. And whichever choice you make defines the outcome. So, now think of it like branches on a tree, a many branched tree wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised.”
“So what you’re saying is, when someone makes a certain decision their lives travel along one branch of a tree, but if they had made a different decision, their life continues in a different direction along a different branch of the same tree.”
“Precisely. At the point a person either makes, or doesn’t make a decision, or takes, or doesn’t take a particular action, their lives split and travel in different directions at the same time in parallel with each other. So this could answer your question whether a person could be in two, or more different places at the same time.”
“But wouldn’t that mean that the person would need to split into two?”
“No, because we’re talking about quantum mechanics and it can be proved that atoms can be in two different places at the same time.”
Markland sat in his chair and put his hands behind the back of his head.
“Before I carry on, what are you and I made up of?” asked Jodie.
“I don’t know. I guess bone, blood, water, fat.”
“Yes, but on a quantum mechanics level, what are we made from, what is everything you see around you made of?” asked Jodie, waving her arm around the room.
“Are you talking about atoms?”
“Yes atoms. And there is an experiment called the Double Slit experiment, which proves that photons, which are light particles and behave like atoms, can be in two different places at the same time. And as we are all made up of atoms, we should behave in the same way and can be in two or more different places at the same time.”
Markland checked his watch and was amazed that forty minutes had passed.
“Do we have time to talk about this double slit thing now?”
“Yes, if I keep it very, very brief.”
Jodie picked up a sheet of paper and drew a diagram. When she’d finished, she passed it to Markland.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a drawing of the Double Slit experiment.”
Markland squinted his eyes and tried to make sense of the diagram.
“It’s a diagram of a piece of card with two vertical slits cut into it, and behind the card is a wall. A light from a torch is shone through the two vertical slits.”
Markland nodded and confirmed he understood the diagram.
“What pattern would you expect to see cast on the wall behind the cardboard with the two slits?” asked Jodie.
“Pattern, what do you mean by pattern?”
“What would you expect to see, if you shone a light on to a piece of card with two vertical slits in it? What pattern would the light cast against the wall behind the cardboard?”
“I would expect to see two lines on the wall from the light which passes through the two vertical slits in the card.”
“That’s what you would expect. But if you carried out this experiment using a laser instead of a torch and the wall behind was exchanged for a light sensitive viewing screen, which records the photons as they hit the screen, you would see that there is a third line in between the two vertical lines.”
“Why would that happen?”
“This happens because in the world of quantum mechanics things behave very differently, and I’ll try to explain what’s going on,” said Jodie clearing her throat. “The particles of light, called photons, leave the laser and pass through the two slits, which is why there are two clear vertical lines. But some of the photons are passing through both slits at the same time, so in effect they are in two different places at the same time. When a photon has passed through each slit at the same time, it joins back together, and it forms the third line on the viewing screen.”
Markland sighed
“When you get a chance search the internet for the double slit experiment, there’s loads of stuff out there about it.”
“I will, I’ll take a look this evening. So this double slit thing really does confirm that an atom can be in two different places at the same time.”
Jodie nodded zealously. Her enthusiasm for science was infectious. She was a good twenty years younger than Markland but he couldn’t help himself from warming to the young teacher and her compelling passion for the subject.
“Is there a particular reason why you needed to know all of this?” asked Jodie.
Markland didn’t answer, instead he gazed into the middle distance.
“Has this something to do with your abilities?”
“I beg your pardon, what abilities?” said Markland, snapping out of his momentary daze.
“The reason why you need to know about parallel worlds, is it to do with your ability to speak with the dead, like you did with Ben Walker?”
Markland glanced at his watch.
“Gosh is that the time, we’d better get going,” said Markland, avoiding her question. “Thanks for my science lesson Jodie, let’s catch up again soon.”
“Yes, and don’t forget, I would love to have a chat about what happened to you.”
Markland smiled, and again, Jodie sensed his apprehension.
“We will Jodie, but I’d prefer not to talk here, perhaps we could have a chat over a drink.”
“It’s a date,” said Jodie, and smiled warmly.
Markland returned from work just after five. With Jodie’s words ringing in his ears he went straight to his computer and searched for the double slit experiment. He clicked on Wikipedia, and tried to make sense of what he was reading.
“I’m just not clever enough to understand,” said Markland to himself. There was far too much information for him to take in. And then he saw it, right at the very bottom of the page there was a heading.
Many-worlds interpretation
Beneath the heading was one line of text. It was almost like an afterthought compared to the rest of the page.
‘Physicist David Deutsch argues in his book ‘The Fabric of Reality’, that the double-slit experiment is evidence for the many-worlds interpretation.’
Markland was too tired to read anything else on the subject. He decided to accept what Jodie had told him, and assume that there was enough information available on the internet to suggest what she had told him could be true.
What she told him had indirectly answered a question that had been bothering him during the weekend.
He picked up his phone and called Howie Doyle.
Chapter 28