SFX MAGAZINE: The Science Of Fringe
Quantum physicist David Deutsch describes why alternative universes may not just be the stuff of science fiction – and that’s why he loves Fringe
by Dave Golder
September 28 2011
It’s a big week for Fringe. Last Friday season four premiered in the States and tonight we play catch-up in the UK (10pm, Sky1). The third season has also just been released on DVD and Blu-ray, courtesy of Warner Home Video. It’s one of the most unashamedly “out there” shows on TV, delving gleefully into all manner of hardcore SF ideas, and at its heart is the ongoing arc of an alternate universe, filled with unfamiliar versions of familiar characters.
And it’s all nonsense, right? More sci-fantasy than something based on the latest revelations in New Scientist?
Maybe, maybe not.
Meet David Deutsch, a “controversial” quantum physicist, scientific philosopher and writer, author of such books as The Fabric Of Reality and his latest (published earlier this year in hardback, and in January 2012 in paperback), The Beginning Of Infinity. A staunch believer in the esistence of alternate universes, he’s also found the way Fringe deals with the idea refreshing... even if it doesn’t quite fit in with the theories...
... Q: So do you watch Fringe in a state of “suspension of disbelief?”
David Deutsch: "No, not really. There are two approaches to fictional science, one of which I like and the other of which I hate. The one I hate is where you just make up stuff and anything goes. That’s no good, because there is no integrity to such a story.
The good way of doing science fiction is to invent a premise, perhaps totally unjustified or totally fictional in terms of science, but you invent that premise and then investigate what the world would be like if that premise were true. And investigate that premise ideally in the way scientists use to investigate the implications of real scientific theories. The best science fiction is of that kind. But unfortunately it’s only science fiction books that reach the really high standard of that sort of thing. Books like Greg Egan, for example.
I think you can divide Fringe episodes into two kinds. There’s what you might call “joke” episodes which are just about a one-off idea and the interest in the story is not really in the fictional science. But Fringe also does the other thing. There are some episodes – and also the main thread of the plot as it runs through all the episodes – where what they’ve done is they’ve taken parallel universes theory and they explore it. They’ve changed it a bit, so that for instance, there are only two universes instead of countless numbers of them, and so that you can move between them instead of not being able to and so on. But they stated up front what these differences are, and then they used that fictional science to investigate not only issues that would arise in that fictional world, but some of the philosphical issues, like I said earlier, about personal identity and so on. In that respect, I think the authors of Fringe have done a fairly good job. I watch it for entertainment, but I’m more entertained when it’s exploring those issues.
I don’t get angry about bad science like some scientists do. What I get angry about is bad fiction..."
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