[ExI] Google’s Willow Quantum Chip: Proof of the Multiverse?

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2025 at 12:00 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Google’s Willow Quantum Chip: Proof of the Multiverse?
>
> On 14/10/2025 04:31, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> >>... The AI explanation failed to address the question. Under MWI, the
> > worlds are separate after splitting...
>
> >...I don't claim to really understand this whole thing, but I was
> wondering about how a half-silvered mirror can create two photons without
> violating at least one conservation law...Not that I've ever understood
> what 'entanglement' actually means anyway... Another thing that makes no
> sense to me is ...
> --
> Ben
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> Ben, it has long been known that struggling too hard to make sense of
> quantum mechanics can cause brain injuries.  That's why we engineers leave
> that to the physicists: trained mental athletes they are.  They do their
> mental stunts with a sincere warning Don't try this at home, engineers.
> We're trained experts.
>
> Well OK then.  We engineers learn how to use the equations to make stuff
> out of a phenomenon we don't understand, the physicists will struggle to
> understand something they aren't making stuff outta, and all is well.
>
> But do let me leave you with a fun thought experiment please, knowing it
> comes from a feller who doesn't understand QM after a lifetime of puzzling
> about it.
>
> Imagine the 3D projection of the multidimensional manifold which is
> spacetime, indulging me on this being as I am a 3D critter, so cut me some
> 3D slack analogous to how the sphere was indulgent with A Square in
> Flatland.
>
> Imagine all the everything is at a point, and for some unknown reason it
> exploded and the stuff on the surface of the resulting 3D sphere was moving
> at the speed of light.  This is the engineer's 3D view (kinda) of the Big
> Bang and ja we know it really doesn't work that way, but Sphere me please
> for this thought experiment.
>
> Now imagine the universe is closed (because anything else is just too sad)
> and the expansion of the universe gradually slows under its own gravity,
> still the speed of light out there but it gradually slows and stops, then
> starts contracting again (Shane!  Come back, Shane!) and ja I know the
> photons didn't actually stop, they turned (somehow) in 4D space) but
> thought experiment: imagine some radius, say 33 GLY if you like the latest
> number I see tossed about with these guys teasing us that the universe is
> closed.
>
> Now... imagine away all quantum states except position.  Look only at
> position in 3 space since we are going to imagine motion and time are
> illusions that we lowly 3D things experience, so just imagine a 3D sphere
> with a bunch of particles in it with a radius of 33 gigglies.
>
> How many different configurations of particles are there?
>
> Assumptions: every particle must occupy a cubic (or spherical diamater if
> you prefer) Planck length (diameter or side length 1.6E-35 m) in a sphere
> radius 33 GLY.
>
> How many configurations possible.
>
> Doing the calcs to one sig fig gives me about (10^180)!/(10^80)!
>
> Somewhere around there.  OK you fellers who are hot with your gamma
> functions, I will settle for an estimate of that number to a few orders of
> magnitude between friends (John are you up to speed on that?  Other
> math/physics jockeys?  (Help us Zaiboc Ben Kenobi, you're our only hope (or
> one of about five only hopes.))  John, Ben, others, please estimate that
> expression (using gamma or your favorite math trick) or offer your own
> model.
>
> There is a fun part 2 with this thought experiment which I will cheerfully
> offer but I want your estimates of (10^180)!/(10^80)! first please, or
> offer a counter-suggestion on how to estimate the number of possible
> configurations possible in a stationary 3D sphere of 33 GLY radius, of the
> approximate number of cubic Plancks which will fit inside that 3D sphere.
>
> This line of thought gets way cool from there, possibly brain-injuring
> cool.
>

Tegmark goes through this kind of calculation here:
https://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/PDF/multiverse_sciam.pdf

Your approach of measuring Planck volumes that can fit within the
universe's volume will overestimate the number of possible states given the
holographic principle and the Bekenstein bound.

Here is a sheet where I estimate the information capacity of the observable
universe:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O4KjHJnRaOqyvRrToT-mlLVMFCP90KRrpNhBuWU9Pbs/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Which comes up with an information capacity of 2.33 * 10^123 bits. The
number of possible states the universe (with this volume/information
capacity) could possibly be in is then: 2^((2.33*10^123))

Note that Stuart (on this list) said even this is an overestimate, and that
I should be using the volume of a black hole of radius c * age of the
universe (but it would be off by a factor of 3.38^2 ~= 11. So you can drop
an order of magnitude from this estimate.

Jason
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