From Kenneth Pettett
Help, we appear to be trapped! I and my myriad doppelgangers were reading Rachel Courtland’s article on how the concept of multiple universes causes a problem for the idea of infinite superpositions in the standard model of quantum mechanics, when we came across the instruction “see Identity crisis” (28 August, p 6). This was a reference to a sidebar.
About half of us obeyed, and then came across the instruction “see main story”. Again, about half of us obeyed and, not knowing where to start, began reading the main article from the beginning. On again encountering the instruction “see Identity crisis” we are now in a simultaneous superposition of an indefinite number of states, some of us probably stuck in an infinite loop.
Alas, we are reading this alone and there is no one to observe us and make us real. However, all is not lost; I am writing to you and if you read it, it may count as an observation. But, just in case, please publish this in your Letters section where the vast number of readers is bound to make us real again.
Sandy, Bedfordshire, UK
