Can we ever build a “Improbability Engine” from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in real life (or is that highly improbable)?

when?

A space engine that allows you to make improbable journeys between the stars.

Where did you see?

As said in the movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: With the Non-Probabilistic Drive, you can travel great cosmic distances in a split second “without all that boring excess stuff.”

How far are we?

space ship heart of gold, the first ship to use the Non-Probability Infinity Engine, according to tradition, will soon fly in real life. At least, if it’s up to the space company SpaceX. Elon Musk plans to name his first manned ship bound for the neighboring planet Mars after the famous ship from Hitchhiker’s Guide.

And while the point at which humans will fly to Mars is still a few years away – if that happens, it’s not entirely certain – it probably dwarfs the time we’ll have to wait before we can build an improbable engine.

or not? The alien space engine will take you to random places far away in space. Perhaps not very practical, but if you have to spend eternity within the confines of the solar system, it might be worth it.

The idea of ​​the engine is loosely based on a concept from quantum physics, the theory of physics that describes the behavior of reality on the scale of the smallest particles that make up everything around us. According to the theory, these particles can be in several places at the same time. In addition, some locations – close to where you’d expect the particle to be – are the most likely. It is highly unlikely that a particle that is now in a newspaper will suddenly appear on the other side of the universe. But it is not excluded.

The same goes for spaceships, according to the people who developed the Heart of Gold engine. Such an engine, by definition, is known to be unreliable. even in Possible After all, events are still opportunities, not certainties. So you just have to hope that such a non-probabilistic engine actually works, not to mention that you can fly to a predetermined destination.

Even if we can tame the laws of probability (not very likely), we are not quite there yet. Because what is possible with molecules cannot easily be extended to the everyday world of people, trees, and spaceships. You yourself cannot be in Amsterdam, New York and Paris at the same time, nor can your spaceship move from Earth to a far corner of the Andromeda galaxy in the blink of an eye. In other words, there is a boundary between the classical everyday world and the strange quantum world of particles that you might be able to stretch, some physicists hope, but likely never break. In other words, a non-probabilistic infinite drive is impossible. Or infinitely improbable at best.

At least: in our world. in World Hitchhiker’s Guide Something that already exists can make “limited possibilities” a reality. For example, you can move all the particles in someone’s shoe, and then the left shoe will be on the right foot and vice versa.

Thus, the discoverer of the motor concluded: If the non-probabilistic infinite motor is in fact impossible, then it must also be finitely improbable. And so you can build one. Whether this conclusion expands the boundaries of logic, imagination, and possibility to such an extent that they instantly break, remains a mystery.