Everything in a Single Go

According to a "mathematical discovery" by Oxford University faculty, parallel universes exist. That's right, a few mathematicians have concluded that because they've worked out a system that fits another system that says (suggests, hypothesises, halluncinates - take your pick) that the universe is constantly splitting into multiple branches of alternative realities, that it's so. I suppose it's just like the movie Clue with its multiple endings, only funnier.

So, in this universe you may be delusional, hyperactive, paranoid, and obscenely wealthy, and in another universe you might be Tom Cruise.

All right, I'll admit that's not the best differentiation possible.

Still, let's examine the logical outcome of this kind of thinking. Based on the idea of multiple universes, a man could get up for work in the morning, cut himself shaving in one universe and not in the next. The one version of this poor bloke has a bit of slightly-bloodied toliet tissue stuck to his face, whilst the other one doesn't. Then the same bloke could miss the lift, causing him to rush down a flight of stairs, winding him so much that he is unable to see the large bus which promptly rolls over his toilet-papered face on it's way to Times Square.

The other, un-toliet-paper-faced bloke catches the lift, makes his earlier bus and by chance meets Cameron Diaz, who is so taken with his unblemished complexion and lack of persperation that she offers to go on a dirty weekend with him to the Bahamas.

So, one bloke ends up blemished, tired, and dead, and the other winds up merely tired and on the cover of next week's The Sun.

This leaves out the multitude of alternate possibilities, such as the cut-faced chap actually catching the lift and the bus, meeting Cameron Diaz and having her take pity on him and offer him 5 dollars and an autographed, unbloodied kleenex. Or, the non-cut chap could have missed the lift, got flattened by the bus, and Cameron, passing by in the second bus, would have noticed his pristine features, and moved so by his tragic passing, entered a nunnery in devotion to this sudden love, where she would remain in doleful silence for the rest of her life, except for the constant playing of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" on the convent organ by one of the peppier sisters.

Even that doesn't include the variation where both Cameron and the cut or non-cut faced chap are kidnapped by vacationing extraterrestials on a third bus¹ and taken to repopulate the planet Mars, winding up on the cover of next week's Weekly World News next to the latest incarnation of Bat Boy.

According to the faculty at Oxford, all of these things would, in fact, happen simultaneously.

That leads me to the conclusion that in an alternate universe, certain of Oxford's mathematicians and physicists are rancourous nutters with lots of free time, a nearby pub, and a slim grip on reality.

There is of course the possibility that could be this universe.

On the other hand, in some universe I would be the star striker for Arsenal and a world famous recording star.

You know, I could learn to love this theory.

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1 - A Manhattan tour bus, between stops at the Empire State Building and Rupert Jee's Hello Deli, next to the Ed Sullivan Theatre, just in case you were wondering. Extraterrestials love the Regis Philban with extra Ranch on the side.