Infinity Worlds

In this chapter, I focus on the concept of Infinity Worlds hypothetical Earths with infinite extent. For example, consider the geography of the Earth today, except that the map is infinitely repeated in the north and south directions (Figure 4.3). On Infinity World one could fly north in a plane from Greenland and arrive at the South America of the adjacent map. 

I also asked colleagues how their answers would be different if Infinity World were created by repeating today s world map along a vertical line in the Atlantic or Pacific ocean. (In these scenarios the world would be infinitely repeated horizontally rather than vertically.) If they thought it useful, respondents were told they could think of a repetitious map on a extremely wide cylinder or sphere. Scientists were asked to ignore the fact that gravity would flatten humans in a superwide Earth. 

FIGURE 4.3. A small section of Infinity World created by an infinite repetition of Earth maps. (Schematic representation by JoAnn McLoughlin.)... 

The profound effects of an infinitely repetitious world are not entirely clear. Would wars be infrequent because territorial acquisition is unimportant in an infinite world Would humanity s awesome sense of wonder in Infinity World decrease the occurrence of wars In my opinion, wars would be just as frequent. Wars were quite common when our Earth was largely unexplored and the Earth had unlimited territory. Ancient civilizations were often at war. 

Would space travel evolve on Infinity World Because there would always be unexplored terrestrial regions, why would the inhabitants look to the stars for adventure, national prestige, or scientific advancement ... 

Would ecological concerns and green political movements evolve on Infinity World Why would inhabitants be concerned with pollution, biodiversity, or animal or plant extinction with unlimited land and water No doubt there would be local pollution concerns, but overall Interest would be diminished. 

Would an organization resembling the United Nations evolve Would the dinosaurs still be alive today on Infinity World Would criminals be more difficult to catch Instead of fleeing to South America, they would only have to hop a plane to any one of a number of maps. On Infinity World, there are infinitely many countries in which to hide. 

Mike Hocker from Poughkeepsie, New York, suggested that the use of atomic weapons on Infinity World would be less of a concern. Mike believes that wars would be common as populations tried to destroy others before they were destroyed. Xenocide and paranoia would be the geopolitical norm. Nations would race to develop interworld ballistic missiles (IWBMs) as opposed to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Vast land areas would be radioactive or devastated by horrendous nuclear, chemical, and biological weaponry. 

On Infinity World, disaffected persons can leave their world and go to a new place. This is not possible on our limited Earth at this time, and this absence of a safety valve permitting exodus causes stagnation and societal stratification. (Consider European stagnation and persecution before the New World was discovered and accessible.)... 

Chaos theory, which suggests that imperceptibly small differences are amplified through time, may have no effect on Infinity World if all sub-Earths have truly identical starting points, McLean suggests we allow some uncertainty to exist in our starting points. Perhaps we will let electron positions be random, and then chaos will eventually diversify our sub-Earths. 

From a mathematical standpoint, McLean notes that there is little danger of actually running into your parallel-world doppelganger, as the number of sub-Earths where you are not bom so vasdy outweighs the ones where you are bom, (Still, an infinite number of your equivalents exist on an Infinity World.) And, although the infinity effect means that some extremely bizarre sub-Earths will exist, some version of the central limit theorem (the statistical notion that repeated combinations of random observations tend to cluster around a single mean) will cause Earths to cluster around some average behavior. 

Would confusion reign on Infinity World because a sovereign nation owns different territories in different maps For example, the government of Viemam might occupy southeastern Asia on one world and North America on the next. 

Of course there would be various physical problems associated with Infinity World. David Karr from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, wondered how such a huge, infinitely long object could orbit the sun. He suggested that the sun might orbit the Earth, and therefore Galileo could not have challenged the Church by claiming, The Earth moves (Would there be seasons on an infinite Earth On our Earth, there are seasons due to the tilt of the Earth with respect to the plane of the Earth-sun orbit.)... 

David DeLaney from the University of Tennessee s Physics Department suggested that Infinity World would not have a magnetic field, if the cylinder were hollow. This in turn would have extensive effects on navigation, the Van Allen belts, cosmic radiation, animals navigation, auroras, and so on. 

On Infinity World, land animals (including most birds) would be completely cut off from crossing into other worlds. With millions of years of separate evolution, vastly different biotas would exist. 

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