A speculative mind

  I have finished reading Patrick Stewart’s autobiography, Making it So. I have long been an admirer of Stewart. Being a fan of Star Trek, I was thrilled in 1986 when it was announced that the new Star Trek series which was to be called Star trek; The Next Generation , was to feature him as the captain of the Enterprise: Jean-Luc Picard. It had been a long time since the end of the original series, and us Trekkies eagerly awaited the new one. I had seen Patrick Stewart a number of times before this. The first time I had seen him (though I didn’t realize it until years later) was in the wonderful miniseries I Claudius . I saw him in Dune and A few other things. It was enough for me to start noticing him. He had a great voice and spoke with conviction. Until reading his book I had no idea that he grew up in a poor household in Yorkshire and had a thick Yorkshire accent. His accent would have sounded something like the scullery maid Daisy or some of the other lower servants in Down...

  It is a staple of science fiction: the mirror world or mirror universe, or parallel universe. Star Trek has used it any number of times, as have some of the Marvel movies. You know, the characters you are following somehow transition to an alternate universe where there are copies of themselves, but the alternate universe selves are altered. Perhaps if the originals are good, the alternates are bad. Or, perhaps the captain in one universe is a bricklayer in the other. It is a fun concept to play around with in a fictional setting, but like the concept of travel, it doesn’t really work if you think about it too hard. There could certainly be other universes that were belched out of the Big Bang at the same time ours was. They might even start out with the same materials in the same quantities. But a parallel universe? One that has another version of you and me in it? That doesn’t work. The two universes would have to be absolutely identical and our doppelgangers doing the same ...