How Can Either Side Stand the Pain of Loss in Paradise?
Quantum Mechanics May Hold the Answer!

   Man, the Phillies are killing me! In Game Four of the World Series they lost in the ninth, and last night in Game Five they very nearly did it again. Which makes me wonder: if I should die before it ends, would the World Series be on in heaven? Seems damned unlikey.
   For one thing, I cannot believe that Fox broadcasts reach the celestial sphere. If ever there was a creation of the devil, it is surely the Fox Network.
    But even if the sainted Jon Miller is calling the play-by-play on ESPN (the Ethereal Sports Prayer Network), how could it be heard in heaven if all us Phillies fans have to live with disappointment yet again? On the other hand, much as the idea of Yankees fans in heaven galls me, I have to admit that if any there be, they would suffer even greater disappointment if the Yanks go down. (We are accustomed to the Philly Phade; they have a sense of entitlement.)
    So, we baseball fans are stuck with a paradox. Heaven is supposed to be a place of eternal joy, where no tooth is gnashed nor a tear ever shed. Yet, what joy would there be in eternal life without baseball? (Or, if you must, football, basketball, hockey, etc.) But, as ABC's Wide World of Sports catechized me in my youth, the thrill of victory cannot be achieved without a corresponding agony of defeat. Or can it?
    Here comes science to the rescue! Whenever you have a paradox on your hands, you cannot do better than to turn to quantum mechanics. Nothing comes close to QM for brain-bending puzzlement. It is the pinnacle of paradox. You've surely heard of quantum leaps, and probably of quantum entanglement, but do you know about the Many Worlds Interpretation? Therein lies the resolution to our Fall Classic conundrum.
    Scientists have struggled for decades to make sense of how tiny particles such as electrons can exist in a quantum superposition, spread out over space and time, and then suddenly and randomly snap into place. The process is known as decoherence, and it can, in principle, put the electron (or photon, or whatever) anywhere in the universe.  The chances are much greater that it will be in one spot than another, but there is only a statistical probability, not a guarantee.
    The element of randomness has bothered a lot of people. Einstein didn't buy it. Neither did Hugh Everett III, who as a physics student at Princeton wrote his doctoral thesis on the problem and came up with a radical, no a truly astonishing, solution. He argued that every time a quantum particle is faced with a choice -- say, go left or go right -- the entire Universe splits into identical copies, except that in one copy the particle goes left, and in the other it goes right. Everett's idea has come to be called the Many Worlds Interpretation, and it is accepted by many physicists as the most rational explanation of the crazy-seeming quantum world. Since everything is made up of elementary particles and their interactions, this means that everything that could possibly happen does happen.
    If you buy a lottery ticket, somewhere out there, among the 200 million or so Universes that represent different draws of the numbers, you were the lucky winner. Right now, you may be sunning yourself on a tropical island, sipping a drink and trying not to poke your eye out with the little paper umbrella. Of course, the chances that *you* will be in that Universe are pretty slim -- 200 million to one against, in fact. Tough luck!
    But take this idea to heaven, and something wonderful happens. Everybody gets to be a winner! In some worlds, the Phils win in four straight. In others, it's the Yanks in four. And in yet others, it goes to Game Seven, with each team coming through victorious in their own Fan-o-Sphere.
    Of course, there are also worlds in which fans are bitterly disappointed by their team's loss -- in every conceivable way. Those worlds naturally constitute hell. Come to think of it, if Everett is right, everything I have described is natural. You don't have to go anywhere to experience it. Just sit back and see which world you end up in.
    Play ball!