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Science! It bestows immortality on those who advance it to elevate all of mankind.
Newton! Einstein! Sagan! Princes among men!
But the price for such a legacy is steep indeed... in Night Springs.
Tonight’s episode: “A Quantum Suicide”.
If our lives are already written, it would take a courageous man
to change the script. Having called a press conference,
Doctor Barclay Colvin is about to demonstrate that very courage.
Ladies and gentlemen of the press,
I’m Doctor Barclay Colvin,
and I’m glad so many of you could join me here at the Moorcock Institute.
Tonight, I’m going to give a practical demonstration
of the many-worlds interpretation.
As you can see, this is a loaded 9mm pistol.
It shall be a part of a thought experiment --
and now a real experiment! --
known as a quantum suicide.
Did he say suicide?
Is that a real gun? He’s kidding, right?
Please, please! Stay calm.
There is no risk. Observe what occurs
when I place the weapon against my own forehead:
Now, you might think this round is merely a dud.
Not so! Observe the flower pot:
And yet, I myself cannot be harmed with this gun.
With each pull of the trigger, two new realities branch off;
one in which the weapon didn’t fire, and one where it did.
With my machine here, I have ensured
that this reality is always the former.
I have bestowed upon myself quantum immortality:
under no circumstances can this gun kill me!
So, wait, wait, wait --
what you’re saying is that every time you pull the trigger,
in another reality, you... die?
Yes, yes, of course. But that’s completely trivial;
there’s an infinite number of things that could happen at any moment,
and they always happen somewhere.
The point is, this one thing did not. Happen. Here.
You’re insane, Colvin!
Insane? Insane?!
Hey, was this thing supposed to be plugged in? I stumbled on it!
You fools! Gaze upon quantum immortality!
Poor, poor Doctor Colvin! Felled by his own hubris? Or the ignorance of the masses?
Perhaps he should have left the crate unopened, the decaying atom unobserved!
Curiosity often kills the cat... in Night Springs.