Leaking into the Multiverse

In describing the phenomenal power of Google’s new ‘Willow’ quantum processor Hartmut Neven, the founder of the Google Quantum AI said it “lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse”.

Whether or not that is true, it does remind me of a cautionary tale in Isaac Asimov’s “The Gods Themselves”. The title is part of a quote by Friedrich Schiller, the full form being:

“Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.”

The remaining parts form the section titles comprising the story. It arose from Asimov’s snarky response to Robert Silverberg’s reference to an ‘impossible’ isotope in a convention speech. Asimov spun this unlikely occurrence into the discovery of a energy transferral process with another Universe. Unsurprisingly, warnings that this ‘free’ cornucopia might lead to a local imbalance and catastrophic disruption go unheeded.

Now we have quantum processors doing something similar with information. If that is truly the case, what might the long term effect be?

Greg Egan’s short story “Dark Integers” (published in an anthology of the same name) also considers universes leaking into each other via patterns seen in the realm of truly huge numbers.

To give an idea of the significance, our observable Universe is estimated to contain 10^80 particles. A huge number that nevertheless can be concisely described by 80 digit numbers.

Now consider numbers of the order 10^10^80. These would require 10^80 digits (one for each particle in the observable Universe) to describe precisely.

Not happening.