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2022
Many Worldian Emotions
(abridged)
Role:
Designer, Thinker,
Researcher, Futurist
A designed research study into particular emotional phenomenons that occur in a Quantum common sense world, specifically in relation to the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
View full project here.
View full project here.
CONTEXT
The Many Worlds interpretation states that whenever an event has different possible endings, the universe splits into separate copies so that every ending happens in its own version of reality. Of course, if you adopt this view, it'll generate lots of contradictory emotions.
The Many Worlds interpretation states that whenever an event has different possible endings, the universe splits into separate copies so that every ending happens in its own version of reality. Of course, if you adopt this view, it'll generate lots of contradictory emotions.
MINDSET
Shashwath decided to test what a Many-Worldian mindset felt like while walking across the city of New York, a little like method acting. And to do this, he used an actual app called the Universe Splitter to decide which route to take at each junction. The app is real; you can download it on your phone.
Shashwath decided to test what a Many-Worldian mindset felt like while walking across the city of New York, a little like method acting. And to do this, he used an actual app called the Universe Splitter to decide which route to take at each junction. The app is real; you can download it on your phone.
SPLITTING THE UNIVERSE
So, the Universe Splitter allows you to make a truly random decision, not like flipping a coin, which is still Newtonian. To make a decision, in this case, which turn to take the Universe Splitter contacts a quantum device in a laboratory in Geneva, in Switzerland, which within seconds releases a single photon into a partially silvered mirror, so that each photon would have two possible paths.
Link to the app.
So, the Universe Splitter allows you to make a truly random decision, not like flipping a coin, which is still Newtonian. To make a decision, in this case, which turn to take the Universe Splitter contacts a quantum device in a laboratory in Geneva, in Switzerland, which within seconds releases a single photon into a partially silvered mirror, so that each photon would have two possible paths.
Link to the app.
Link to the app.
PROCESS
According to the Many-Worlds interpretation, the photon will take both paths but in separate universes, therefore splitting the universe into the route Shashwath would take and the one he didn't.
So he ended up with two possible worlds, A and B: the route he actually took and the route he could have taken.
According to the Many-Worlds interpretation, the photon will take both paths but in separate universes, therefore splitting the universe into the route Shashwath would take and the one he didn't.
So he ended up with two possible worlds, A and B: the route he actually took and the route he could have taken.
So he ended up with two possible worlds, A and B: the route he actually took and the route he could have taken.
To record each decision, he picked up discarded artifacts from whatever universe he found himself in, placing them in one of two bags labeled Universe A and Universe B.
Ultimately, the project was about two things: adopting a Many-Worldian mindset, moving away from abstractions to see what it actually felt like and using design to bring this kind of thinking to a wider audience through superficial but spontaneous conversations on the street to see what kind of dynamics emerge from that. This was a very quick project done for a few hours a week over one semester.
View full project here.
View full project here.
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FEATURED
Presented by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Not Here, Not Now book launch at MoMA, New York, moderated by Paola Antonelli
FEATURED
Presented by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Not Here, Not Now book launch at MoMA, New York, moderated by Paola Antonelli
Bibliography:
1 Everett, H., 1957, ‘Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics’, Review of Modern Physics, 29: 454–462; see also ‘The Theory of the Universal Wave Function’, in B. De Witt and N. Graham (eds.), The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
2 A Brief History of Quantum Mechanics - with Sean Carroll. Lecture at The Royal Institution. Feb 6, 2020
3 The Big Picture: From the Big Bang to the Meaning of Life - with Sean Carroll. Lecture at The Royal Institution. Nov 22, 2017
4 Ball, Philip. Beyond Weird : Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different, University of Chicago Press, 2018.
5 Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway : Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Duke University Press, 2007.
6 Chiang, Ted. 2020. Exhalation. London, England: Picador.
7 Popova, Maria. “Alice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of Quantum Mechanics by a CERN Physicist.” The Marginalian (blog), January 30, 2014.
8 CCCB LAB. “The Quantum Sense II: Paradoxes,” April 3, 2018.
9 CCCB LAB. “The Quantum Sense III: Quantum Information,” June 12, 2018.
10 Gribbin, John. Six Impossible Things : The Mystery of the Quantum World, MIT Press, 2019.
1 Everett, H., 1957, ‘Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics’, Review of Modern Physics, 29: 454–462; see also ‘The Theory of the Universal Wave Function’, in B. De Witt and N. Graham (eds.), The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
2 A Brief History of Quantum Mechanics - with Sean Carroll. Lecture at The Royal Institution. Feb 6, 2020
3 The Big Picture: From the Big Bang to the Meaning of Life - with Sean Carroll. Lecture at The Royal Institution. Nov 22, 2017
4 Ball, Philip. Beyond Weird : Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different, University of Chicago Press, 2018.
5 Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway : Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Duke University Press, 2007.
6 Chiang, Ted. 2020. Exhalation. London, England: Picador.
7 Popova, Maria. “Alice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of Quantum Mechanics by a CERN Physicist.” The Marginalian (blog), January 30, 2014.
8 CCCB LAB. “The Quantum Sense II: Paradoxes,” April 3, 2018.
9 CCCB LAB. “The Quantum Sense III: Quantum Information,” June 12, 2018.
10 Gribbin, John. Six Impossible Things : The Mystery of the Quantum World, MIT Press, 2019.
Press:
Not Here, Not Now: Speculative Thought, Impossibility, and the Design Imagination, By Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, The MIT Press
Research conducted under the guidance of:
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby,
The Designed Realities Lab, The New School, NY.
Through practice-led research and project-based teaching, it aims to integrate theory and practice into concrete responses to the complex fusion of politics and technology shaping today’s social realities.
Not Here, Not Now: Speculative Thought, Impossibility, and the Design Imagination, By Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, The MIT Press
Research conducted under the guidance of:
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby,
The Designed Realities Lab, The New School, NY.
Through practice-led research and project-based teaching, it aims to integrate theory and practice into concrete responses to the complex fusion of politics and technology shaping today’s social realities.
View full project here.