The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,31
because I have faith ours is not the only story,” said Sadie. “I have faith there are universes we can’t even see, but that exist in parallel to ours.”
“Like alternate dimensions?” asked Sophie Hiller, one of the hard-core comix kids. “Like on that episode of Star Travels? When the captain gets transported into the universe of green-skinned warrior women?”
Everybody laughed, but good old P-to-the-Chen turned around to shoot some death lasers out of her eyes. The auditorium quieted down pretty quick.
“Kind of,” agreed Sadie, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “Multiverse theorists used to think that universes were like strings each held in parallel to each other, which vibrated like the strings on a guitar. Now many think it’s more like thin membranes all lined up—pieces of bread in a loaf—with us as the jelly on the bread! The only thing is, those of us on one slice can’t see any of the other parallel slices.”
The image on the screen changed to a loaf of bread being cut by a knife floating in midair. I sat forward. Multiverse theory wasn’t just an idea for me; it was a fundamental truth of my entire life. It was how I could be from another dimension and at the same time from New Jersey. It was how I could hop from one reality, one identity, one story of my life, into another and back again. Multiverse theory was what it meant to be, well, me.
Sadie was pacing back and forth across the stage now, waving her arms as she spoke. “Anyway, whether you believe in string theory or what scientists now call M, or membrane, theory, the important thing to know about the origin of the universe is that it began because of chaos.”
Wait, what? Someone else mentioning chaos. Why was this word coming up so often? Sesha was working with some sort of Anti-Chaos Committee, and then, I realized with a start, there was that slogan on Ned’s ski hat, Kill the Chaos.
“Chaos is something that you middle schoolers know a lot about, right?” Shady Sadie was asking.
There was a nervous tittering in the audience, which was shut down way quick by our principal turning around in her seat and giving the titterers a laser-eyed death glare.
The Science Lady looked around at us, the stage lights glittering on her dark-framed glasses. “Well, who can give me a definition of chaos?”
Jordan Ogino raised his hand, and when she pointed at him, he shouted, “My bedroom—at least according to my mom!”
There was more tittering, and more quieting down after even more death-glaring from our principal. Shady Sadie took it in stride and said, “Sure, chaos can mean something that’s messy, disordered. What else?”
“Confusion?” shouted Vic Perralta.
“Disorganization?” said Lily Santiago.
“So something bad, right? Something we don’t want in our lives?” said Sadie, holding her arms out wide. “But here’s the thing—the multiverse needs chaos! In fact, it was born, in a sense, from that initial singularity into chaos! The very fabric of the multiverse, and of life itself, is chaos, unpredictability, diversity!”
“That’s not true!” I was surprised to hear the voice coming from right behind me. It was Ned. This time, it wasn’t his hands that were shooting fire, but his words. “What about rules? What about those single stories that bind us all together? What about the all is one, a theory of everything?”
That made me sit up. The all is one, that phrase about the interconnectedness of everything. The last time I’d heard it, Sesha had used it. I shivered. I was getting a really bad feeling about all this.
“Ah!” said Sadie, delightedly pacing the stage as she rubbed her hands together. “We have a future physicist in our midst! Or maybe a philosopher! Yes, indeed, many of the greats—Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking—they were looking for a theory of everything, one master idea that explained everything—gravity, electromagnetics, what have you—in the universe. But we have yet to find such a unifying tale. There is still so much about the multiverse that lies outside of our theorems, our predictions, our understanding.”
“What about Laplace’s demon?” Now Ned was standing up, and the entire auditorium was looking at him.
“Holy detention slips,” Jovi mumbled. “Not-by-the-Hair-of-My-Cheni-Chen-Chen is going to roast him for dinner.”
I would have thought so too, but the weird thing was, our normally no-disruptions-on-my-watch principal just kind of smiled as Ned continued to interrupt our guest.
On the other hand, Shady Sadie was the one starting to look uncomfortable. “You mean Laplace’s 1814 theory of an