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Speaking via Zoom, Daniels declared themselves to be devoted fans of pop science and cosmology. They sent me a copy of “A Vast Pointless Gyration of Radioactive Rocks and Gas What You Happen to Occur (A24 LLC)”, a collection of science and speculative writing by authors they edited, including Jorge Luis Borges and Carl Sagan.
Needless to say, depending on the physics you adopt, there are many theories for the multiverse, not just one. For example, the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics assumes that whenever you make a decision—to turn left instead of right in your driveway, for example—the universe splits in two and continues to branch out at every intersection. There’s a universe to suit any direction you can spin, any way a ball can come out of Aaron Judge’s stick, any way a cookie can smash.
Another version of the multiverse derives from string theory, the so-called “theory of everything” that describes elementary particles as strings of vibrating energy. “The Theory of Everything” might be a better nickname; It turns out that the theory has at least 10^500 solutions in 11 different dimensions, each representing an alternate universe, perhaps with its own laws.
Another multiverse stems from the prevailing, though not fully confirmed, theory of cosmic inflation. At the dawn of time, an endless string of bubbles or “pocket” universes is being pulled apart at dizzying, exponentially accelerating speed, thanks to a violent hum fueled by negative gravity.
The Daniels described their multiverse as a combination of Many Earths and the cosmic bubble bath implied by the theory of inflation. “It’s fun to imagine both versions,” Mr. Kwan said. “Both point to infinity or simply to the unknown.”
But they added that their movie is more about how physics makes you feel than physics. “If you could see alternate lives, that would be it – that would send you into spirals,” said Mr. Scheinert. “It would send any of us into some sort of spiral about the lives you can lead and the choices you can make.”
They said the multiverse could be a metaphor for the attention-deficit lives we embrace in our social media reality bubbles. “I think our stories should constantly seek ways to calm us down again or bring us back to another version of being centered and grounded,” Mr. Kwan said.
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