Is the quantum signature of the Kelvin Universe the same as that of the Prime Universe?

[marsh8472]

According to Star Trek 2009, the Kelvin Universe takes place in an alternate reality:

SPOCK: You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.
UHURA: An alternate reality?
SPOCK: Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed. Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian system warp factor three.

According to TNG "Parallels" matter in each universe has a quantum signature unique to that universe:

DATA: All matter in the universe resonates on a quantum level with a unique signature. That signature is constant. It cannot be changed through any known process. It is the basic foundation of existence.
RIKER: Are you saying that Worf's quantum signature is different from ours?
DATA: Yes, sir. I cannot explain it. It is as if he originates from a different quantum universe.

Spoiler: Discovery spoiler

In Discovery episode "Despite Yourself" they were able to determine that they were in a different universe by using this quantum signature method

SARU: I may have something.
The quantum signature of the Cooper, as well as that of the Vulcan cruiser, are inconsistent with ours.
BURNHAM: That's not possible.
All matter native to our universe resonates with the same quantum signature, nothing can change it.
That's true.
Unless this is not our universe.

So the question I had was: Is the quantum signature of the Kelvin Universe the same as that of the Prime Universe?

If the Kelvin and Prime Universe have the same quantum signature then would that make them in the same universe given that the quantum signature was supposed to be unique to each universe? Or are quantum signatures not necessarily unique to each universe if the universes are created from a branching off process? Or if they do have different quantum signatures, was it always that way? Or did the Kelvin Universe's quantum signature suddenly change when Nero traveled back in time? If that's the case then would that not be a way to change the quantum signature given the quantum signature was supposed to be unalterable?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Sure, why not? None of it makes any sense anyway.

I wonder if it changes in all the overwritten prime universe alternates we see, like in "Storm Front", "City on the Edge of Forever" or "Shockwave"? Or does every previous recording of the quantum signature change also, so that people can only ever use it to identify intruders to their universe?

 

[Timo]

If "parallel universe" means "a branch in the timeline, distinct from our baseline because of an Event at timepoint T", then obviously the quantum signature is something that constantly evolves, in every universe/timeline. Otherwise, all branches would have an identical signature.

Nero time-traveling is an Event. Young Picard making choices at Starbase Earhart is an Event. Barclay dropping a sonic crescent wrench is an Event. Supposedly, each evolves the quantum signature of that universe/timeline in some fashion...

...But does it do that in each and every object in that universe, so that a choice made in the putative distant joint past of Regular Universe and Mirror Universe means Georgiou's badge carries a quantum signature that can be compared against things other than the nonexistent "Mirror Georgiou's badge"? Apparently so, if we choose to believe that "parallel universe" and "branch in timeline" are the same thing.

Sounds quantum enough to me...

The other alternative here is to say that true "parallel universes", whatever those are, are not mere branches in the timeline, and the former have distinct signatures but the latter (while still legitimately considered "alternate realities") do not.

I have no great passions one way or the other. "Parallels" makes it sound as if all those parallel realities, very much quantum-signed, are indeed the result of infinite branching in the multiverse. But the doubletalk there can be read differently, too.

(The Emperor seems to be able to trivially scan for these signatures, though. And she knows a parallel reality exists. Why doesn't she have a security gate rigged to expose impostors from other realities? Sounds like a step requiring only relatively mild levels of paranoia.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

Yes, it does. It's theoretically possible for folk from the Kelvin timeline to travel to the Prime timeline (where Nero didn't succeed, Romulus is destroyed and Vulcan still exists). This is the universe Star Trek Online inhabits - and in fact there's at least one mission when assisting the 29th Century Timefleet where you visit the Kelvin timeline and fight the Sphere Builders, who are using alternate timelines as "testbed" universes for their new superweapon.

 

[Shawnster]

Do Harry Kim and Naomi Wildman and Miles O'Brien have a different quantum signature than the rest of the universe?

 

[The Wormhole]

Poll options should be
Yes
No
Piss off, I don't give a shit

Guess which one I am.

 

[Christopher]

Presumably alternate timelines must have different quantum signatures, because every "parallel universe" that has an Earth and a humanity and a Starfleet and so forth must be a branch off of the same original history in which such things evolved. Although there's an inherent contradiction there, because every timeline is constantly branching off new alternates, so presumably all those alternates' signatures would have to be constantly changing. So how could you tell whether something with a different signature was from a different timeline or just an earlier time?

Of course, they didn't really think through the logic of it, since they just needed a bit of plot-convenient technobabble to drive the story in "Parallels." So it doesn't actually make much sense.

 

[Verteron]

Do Harry Kim and Naomi Wildman and Miles O'Brien have a different quantum signature than the rest of the universe?

Around 98% of the atoms in the body are replaced each year, so anyone from a different universe would see their quantum signature converge with the universe they're now in before too long, just by eating its food and breathing its air.

Spoiler: Discovery

Even Mirror Lorca probably has a mostly Prime Universe signature after he'd been living here for 200+ days.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Spoiler

Even Mirror Lorca probably has a mostly Prime Universe signature after he'd been living here for 200+ days.

Great Bird bless you for using spoiler code!

 

[Butters]

The way I think of the quantum signature is akin to a summary of the state of that universe, like the whole of reality is encoded within that signature. That way, a visitor from a different universe would be encoded with s different state of the universe, or something.

So Rather than event one, the Big Bang, setting the quantum signature for all branch universes. The sequence of events that constitute that universe forms the quantum signature.

The quantum signature will therefore mutate with every possible outcome on the multiverse, but it will also be consistent with the universe you’re in.

Maybe finding a way to rewrite your quantum signature is a means of switching between parallel universes.

 

[Christopher]

The way I think of the quantum signature is akin to a summary of the state of that universe, like the whole of reality is encoded within that signature.

So, basically the Schroedinger equation of that universe. That kinda makes sense. Although, really, the Schroedinger equation of the universe would define all its parallel outcomes simultaneously, in the same way that the Schroedinger equation of a particle defines the probabilities of all its possible paths. Which would make the quantum signature of a given timeline -- a given "path" of all the particles in the universe collectively -- the specific solution to the universal Schroedinger equation that defines that timeline.

I'm not sure how you could scan for such a thing, though. Knowing the Schroedinger equation of the universe would require measuring every particle in the universe simultaneously. It'd be pretty much impossible for anything short of a Q. But then, if everything in the universe has the same signature, there's no reason to build a sensor that can scan for it, is there? I tend to think that when something from a parallel timeline is scanned, it's actually some sort of interference effect between its signature and your own equipment's signature that's being detected. So you don't need to measure every particle in the universe and actually compute the Schroedinger equation; you just need to detect the interference resulting from the slight difference between the two solutions to the equation.

 

[marsh8472]

According to the pigeon hole principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle if there are infinite universes then a unique identifier for a universe would require a quantum signature of infinite size. If that's not the case then there are either not an infinite number of parellel universes or there are overlapping quantum signatures

 

[Christopher]

According to the pigeon hole principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle if there are infinite universes then a unique identifier for a universe would require a quantum signature of infinite size. If that's not the case then there are either not an infinite number of parellel universes or there are overlapping quantum signatures

The number of parallel timelines that would branch off a common origin would not be infinite. A "universe," in terms that are meaningful to quantum physics, is an ensemble of correlated, mutually interacting particles, and that would essentially be finite in size due to the limited range of speed-of-light interactions that would be possible since the origin of the universe. (Okay, speed-of-subspace-energy interactions in Trek terms, but presumably that's still finite.) So the number of possible state combinations of that finite ensemble of particles would be finite, though large. Infinities are mathematical abstractions that rarely have physical meaning, things that can be approached indefinitely but never actually reached. Generally in physics, if you get an infinite value in an equation, you're doing something wrong.

And again, in my idea that the detected "signature" is actually some kind of interference between the two state equations, then it wouldn't require nearly as much data to encompass it, because it's just the difference between the two, or a consequence thereof. Like how, in quantum teleportation, if you entangle the teleported particles with reference particles, you don't actually need to violate the Uncertainty Principle and measure the particles' position and momentum to arbitrary accuracy simultaneously; you just need to measure the difference between the positions and momenta of the subject and reference particles, without needing to know the quantities themselves.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Infinity is a nonsensical construct in some versions of mathematics. Presumably, possible realities should be countable but that doesn't mean that there is an Aleph-zero (/aleph_{0}) infinity of them, never mind infinities of higher cardinality (/aleph_{1}...). Accepting infinity leads to all sorts of bizarre results such as the sums of all even and odd integers being -1/6 and -1/12 respectively.

The Bekenstein bound implies that the number of possible quantum states for a given mass in a given volume is a finite integral value so it is notionally possible to assign an integer to every possible configuration in the Hilbert space of reality. How you would determine that value is another matter - there is no natural ordering or counter so it's completely arbitrary.

 

[F. King Daniel]

That Data said "For every event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes" says that it's true in Star Trek's fictitious universe.

 

[Verteron]

The number of parallel timelines that would branch off a common origin would not be infinite. A "universe," in terms that are meaningful to quantum physics, is an ensemble of correlated, mutually interacting particles, and that would essentially be finite in size due to the limited range of speed-of-light interactions that would be possible since the origin of the universe. (Okay, speed-of-subspace-energy interactions in Trek terms, but presumably that's still finite.) So the number of possible state combinations of that finite ensemble of particles would be finite, though large. Infinities are mathematical abstractions that rarely have physical meaning, things that can be approached indefinitely but never actually reached. Generally in physics, if you get an infinite value in an equation, you're doing something wrong.

Yep. Indeed, someone's had a go at calculating it.

The max they came up with is 10^10^10^7. Which is fecking huge, but obviously not infinity

 

[Christopher]

That Data said "For every event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes" says that it's true in Star Trek's fictitious universe.

Anecdotal statements should never be taken as absolute fact, and I'll never understand how willing sci-fi fans are to be gullible and just blindly believe everything someone says onscreen. Okay, Data's a more reliable source than most, in theory, but he's still a fictional character being written by fallible human beings, so sometimes he gets words put in his mouth that don't really make sense. (Like saying he doesn't use contractions when he used contractions earlier in the same damn episode.)

By the time of "Parallels," Data's had many people tell him over the years that he shouldn't be too technically precise or clutter up the conversation with irrelevant details, so maybe he said "an infinite number" because he was resisting his tendency toward excess accuracy and was simplifying for the benefit of his audience. By then, he would have observed that humanoids tend not to differentiate between "infinite" and "finite but arbitrarily large," so he could have chosen to emulate the same imprecise usage for the sake of convenience.

 

[XCV330]

There are a lot more hats in the Kelvin universe.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Anecdotal statements should never be taken as absolute fact, and I'll never understand how willing sci-fi fans are to be gullible and just blindly believe everything someone says onscreen.

Maybe because it's the intent of the writer. I get that it bothers you and you'd rather we all thought like you do and ignored the things you don't agree with or that conflict with current real-world theories, but it's a perfectly valid interpretation of the show to take Data at his word and pretend that in the make-believe universe that is Star Trek, there are infinite parallel universes.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe because it's the intent of the writer.

In a franchise that has had hundreds of writers, many of whose intents are mutually contradictory. In such a case, the ability to be flexible in our interpretations is the only way to make any semblance of sense out of the whole.

Even in a work from a single writer, readers are allowed to use their own critical thinking and interpretation. Fiction is meant to promote creative thought in the audience, not forbid it.