{"id":4925,"date":"2010-08-05T13:11:27","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T13:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/08\/05\/many-worlds-in-fiction-divided\/"},"modified":"2010-08-05T13:11:27","modified_gmt":"2010-08-05T13:11:27","slug":"many-worlds-in-fiction-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2010\/08\/05\/many-worlds-in-fiction-divided\/","title":{"rendered":"Many-Worlds in Fiction: “Divided by Infinity”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Tor.com has posted the complete story “Divided by Infinity”<\/a> by Robert Charles Wilson. This remains probably the best science fiction story ever using the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics (though it doesn’t call it that explicitly), and also the creepiest:<\/p>\n

\n

In the year after Lorraine’s death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously, I mean: six times sat with the fat bottle of Clonazepam within reaching distance, six times failed to reach for it, betrayed by some instinct for life or disgusted by my own weakness.<\/p>\n

I can’t say I wish I had succeeded, because in all likelihood I did succeed, on each and every occasion. Six deaths. No, not just six. An infinite number.<\/p>\n

Times six.<\/p>\n

There are greater and lesser infinities.<\/p>\n

But I didn’t know that then.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s great stuff, and I’m really happy that now I’ll be able to point to a free copy when people ask me to recommend fiction that does a good job with quantum ideas. If you haven’t read it already, go read it now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, Tor.com has posted the complete story “Divided by Infinity” by Robert Charles Wilson. This remains probably the best science fiction story ever using the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics (though it doesn’t call it that explicitly), and also the creepiest: In the year after Lorraine’s death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously,… Continue reading Many-Worlds in Fiction: “Divided by Infinity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,7,37,29],"tags":[442,92,93,443,88,213,358,444],"class_list":["post-4925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-physics","category-pop_culture","category-sf","tag-many-worlds","tag-physics-2","tag-quantum","tag-robert-charles-wilson","tag-science-2","tag-science-fiction","tag-stories","tag-tor","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}