Heads you Win

Heads you Win

I suspected that I might be in trouble when my thesis advisor scheduled a meeting with me at 8:00 in the morning. I mean, what self respecting grad student is up at that unholy hour? But I set my alarm and took a shower and even put on a clean shirt for the meeting.

Good thing too, first thing I saw upon coming into the professor's office were two Heads of the Church, in full official regalia. Crap, I hate these guys. But they do run the University. Well, and most of the planet for that matter. I flicked my thumb and slapped my wrist in the traditional greeting, “Heads” I said with as much sincerity as I could manage. The Church officials were much more formal, they flipped actual coins caught them deftly and slapped them onto the back of their writs. “Heads,” The both solemnly agreed.

I lifted an eyebrow at my advisor. Professor Hammer did not look happy. I would put him someplace between angry and terrified. That got my heart beating. Hammer is a senior tenured professor. His 'Hammer Supposition' is the closest thing the scientific community has to a unifying principle and the church positively dotes on him. But something had him worried. And I am thinking that that something was me.

“What's up, Professor?” I asked, genuinely bewildered. Other than that incident with the paint gun last year I really hadn't been up to anything terribly evil.

“Oh, you know well what is up you wicked unbeliever!” interjected the smaller and meaner looking of the two clergymen.

Even more confused, but now a little angry, I addressed the man directly, “I am a registered and sanctioned atheist, Sir, my beliefs or lack of them are protected by law”

“Oh, you have the right to your …. your blasphemy,” sputtered the man, “But it is illegal to proselytize your lies. Illegal and punishable by expulsion and prison !!”

I grabbed one of the professors guest chairs swung it around and sat down backward with my arms crossed on the chair back. I studied the clergymen closely. “Agreed” I finally said. Which made both of the churchmen open their eyes a little in surprise “And we can put aside for the moment that it is only legal to teach a belief, not a lack of it and get right on to the crux of the matter here. Which is, I still have no idea what you are talking about.”

Now Hammer finally got into the conversation, “They are upset by your thesis topic, Timothy.”

My Thesis topic? I had been giving him a thesis topic proposal every few weeks for almost 2 years. Which one could be upsetting the Church so. “Multiple Orgasms as a predictor of impending Earth Quake” I asked?

“No,” he coughed a little and looked at his desk. “The other one”.

“Better Beer through Quantum Mechanics”

“No, Damn you” he was clearly angry now, “The OTHER one.”

He really had lost me. And I was suspicious that he was just getting me to admit to the really bad ones. “Can you give me a hint”, I suggested.

“Multiple Universes”. He sighed. The clergy winced. The older one took out his coin and flipped it calling “Heads” when he spun it on to his wrist. I noted that he studied the coin intensely after the toss. As if it could possibly be anything except heads and by studying it he was proving his belief in the power of God. He was very devote. Why bother looking unless you want to show your devotion to your god? But he looked very upset.

“Are you OK, Head ahh..?” I left it hanging there.

The man looked at me ruefully. Manners demanded that he introduce himself long ago and he knew it. “Stephen is my name,” he said, in a quiet strong voice. “And my associate here is Head William. And we are indeed here because of your theory of Multiple Universes”.

“Multiple Universes.” I said looking first at Head Stephen and then at Head Williams. “Are you sure? Wouldn't you rather yell at me for 'Alternate Uses for K-Y Jelly' or 'Voice Recognition and Porn in the 21^st century'?”

Head William looked to blow a gasket and was ready to explode but Head Stephen shushed him with a gesture of his hand and look at me very seriously, “No, my son, it is multiple universes that concerns us, not your little sexual jokes. I wonder if you would go through your theory for us.”

I leaned back a little and studied the two. A side glance at Professor Hammer. No, they were all serious. Ok. I thought back. This is one of my more bizarre thesis ideas. “It isn't really a theory, you know. It is more of a thought exercise. The whole idea of the thesis was to develop it into a theory. Anyway, it goes like this, suppose there are a multitude of Universes that exist in parallel dimensions to each other. And every time a random event happens in a universe, N other universes come into existence. In each of these universes a different outcome of the random event actually occurs. And so if you should do a random event, like rolling a dice, then you would get a new universe for each of the possible outcomes.” And that is when it hit me. Oh shit. How could I have been so stupid.

Head Stephen took a deep breath. He was studying my face quite intently, “It just hit you, didn't it Timothy?” he sigged. “Well, that is a good thing, anyway. But you see it now. Don't you?”

Slowly I let my breath out. I didn't realize I had been holding it. “It is a known and observable law of physics that whenever you toss a coin, the result is heads. As long as you don't cheat and force a non-random event, It is always heads and has to be heads.”

“Of course it does,” said Head William, with fire in his eyes, “And this is because the lord our God has decreed it so. There is no other explanation. It is his will that forces the toss to be a heads. And to demonstrate, he flipped his holy coin, caught it, slapped it on his wrist almost sang out “Heads” in his religious zeal.

“Please continue, Timothy,” said Head Stephen, after a short silence.

“Well,” I said “Logically. If there exists these universes where anything happens, then there could be universes where, when you flip a coin, a Tail might occasionally appear....”

“Blasphemy!” shouted Head William.

“Oh, do shut up Willy.” said Head Stephen. “We need to get through this and you are just dragging it on. Please continue, Timothy.”

I had been thinking a few steps ahead. “Actually, in order for this to work, MOST of the other universes would need to be nearly random in heads and.... and in tails results.” Even for me, a devote atheist, such nonsense was hard to voice. “In fact, our Universe could be the ONLY of the multiple universes where such a thing would be true.”

“And so,” finished Stephen, “Our observation that every toss results in Heads doesn't have to be the will of God, it could be just the fact that someone has to be in the inverse of all Heads and we are that universe.”

“But..... But..... “ I said. Following it through, “That would mean that every time someone tosses a coin in prayer, there is a Universe created that results in Tails. Every Time !!! Every Single Time!! So the theory is just nonsense.” I pulled out a coin and flipped it. Catching and placing on my write. “Heads” I said. I flipped it again and again, “Heads...... Heads....... Heads............. This can't keep happening like this!!”

“Oh Timothy.” said Stephen, “You know it does. Every time you flip that coin you escape into the Universe that has tails. But part of you must stay here in our Heads Universe. At least, that is your theory. The issue for us is that your theory presents the only known possibility that God may not exist. That our entire universe and very existence could be random. Could be mere chance.”

I was suddenly overcome with sadness for the other me's that lived in the other universes where a coin toss would appear to be a random event. Either Heads or Tails could come up there. I profess to be an Atheist but How terrible for those other versions of me. The Horror at flipping a Tails and now positively knowing that there was no God. How could they possibly ever believe?

I looked at the coin in my hand and then silently passed it over the Head Stephen. If I never flipped a coin again I could never go to one of those other universes. Head Stephen took the coin but just looked on at me sadly, reading my mind. “It isn't that simple, Timothy. It isn't just your flips that effect you. Anyone, anywhere else in the world would also put you into the same danger with every toss.”

Both of us then became aware of Head William. He was standing to the side staring at the back of his hand. He must have just flipped his coin. He was staring at his hand and choking a little. And the look on his face was one of despair and insanity. I walked over to him but I knew what I would see. The tail of a coin shown clearly on the back of his outstretched wrist.