Casual Conversation

Another day, another universe to scan for any human world.

I work with a machine that can open interdimensional wormholes to other branches of the timeline. It goes down for repairs sometimes. We don't build a backup. We don't want to deal with a second one on the same planet.

Each branch of the timeline is like another universe. Air, water, stars, cosmic background radiation.

All the humans we've found share nearly identical home planets, in nearly identical star systems. In English, they're named "Earth" and the "solar system," of a star called the "sun."

Most universes have no Earth, and most Earths have no humans, and most human Earths have no English language.

One theory is, humans don't happen anywhere else. It takes Earth, and it takes the right Earth, to get any humans.

Another theory is, we're just far away from any timeline where humans had a different start, and our wormholes are biased to "nearer" timelines.

We do notice some kind of bias. By random dice rolls, we shouldn't be finding universes with Earths or humans at all.

Measurements suggest it all started from one "Big Bang," and quantum physics created 2 different copies of everything, every time something could go 2 different ways.

It's like our wormholes are somehow magnetized to other timelines with similarities to ours. That's why we can find any human worlds at all, even if most timelines have none.