Many Worlds in One

In grad school, my favorite course was Quantum Field Theory. The instructor was Alexander Vilenkin, a brilliant Cosmologist from Russia who had taught himself the field after his PhD in Biophysics. An pale, introverted man with sensitive eyes, he wore sunglasses even indoors. His classes were a pleasure: it was like hearing music to a symphony that I could never duplicate, but I could certainly appreciate. I would spend hours after each class, painstakingly copying his words and blackboard work.
There were four of us in the class: a man from Pakistan, one from Spain, and one from China. At 22-years-old, I was the sole female representative. Already bludgeoned and extremely self-conscious about my gender and my perceived inadequacies related to an obviously inferior brain, I had resorted to wearing baggy shirts, shapeless corduroy pants and hiking boots - as though the clothing would hide my identity. My hair was cut very short. This did not fool anyone.
I was always excluded from study sessions. The boys in the class (I call them "boys", not men) would complete the homework assignments as a group. I would work long hours alone, trying hard to internalize the mathematics and force my way to the correct solutions. It was a difficult chore to compete when we were graded on a curve. My sole advantage was my passion for the subject and my desire to learn. I was hungry for everything Dr. Vilenkin taught, but so fearful that he would discover my insufficiency. One day, after a particularly grueling assignment, I finally knocked on his door and asked for help. He carefully guided me to the conclusions I needed. I went back to him after another assignment, and another. He was always so generous with his time and his mind.
Towards the end of the semester, Dr. Vilenkin turned up from an equation he had written on the board and called out my name. "What is the answer?" he asked me. I flushed hotly, desperate to escape his scrutiny. Anonymity had long ago ceased to be my shield and I was so exposed.
"I'm afraid to answer," I said finally. "What if I'm wrong?"
"Ah," he said, nodding thoughtfully. "But imagine the rewards if you are correct!"

I read Dr. Vilenkin's publications now. I own his book on Topological defects, a brilliant theory (which recent observations have shown to be an incorrect solution for dark matter). In 2011, when I believed I would marry Sjors and move to the Netherlands, I had a conversation with one of Dr. Vilenkin's colleagues at the University of Leiden who did work on String Theory, with the idea that I might be able to do postdoctoral work with her.

But that was a future that did not occur. I consider these things now in a way I never felt before: the future I longed for and never had. So then I feel Dr. Vilenkin's research in a different context: the philosophy of my own life. There is the "Many Worlds" theory which has come to dominate much of my physics theology: if we live in an infinite universe, there are worlds identical to ours, with our clones conducting much of the same behavior. But with subtle changes. In one world, I bought juice yesterday instead of milk (and so-forth). Most decisions we make do not dictate the end-state of our lives. But there are some that do, and these are the ones that haunt me. In another world, I ignored Sjors when he asked me out. I never spent time with him. Hans moved to Italy and we had children together and married. In yet another world, I am with Sjors now. I wake up beside him and have grown to know and understand his children. We have children of our own and I am filled with joy instead of sorrow.

Perhaps it is the closeness of these alternate worlds that causes me such pain. I awakened this morning at 0500, next to a man for whom I feel mild affection, and I was filled with such pain and longing I had to escape the room so that I could cry in private. I am glad to have some moments of kindness and attention in my life, but it is made unbearable when I see, across the infinite distance, the variations in path which gave me this present pain, and which has given another self joy. What would it be to wake up tomorrow and switch places with her?