Multiple Choice

“The physicist Max Tegmark has argued that the universe repeats itself over and over again (including all possible variations) if you go far enough, and estimates that there should be a perfect copy of you no more than 10^10^118 meters away.”

(taken from Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasures, pg. 47, by Ian Stewart)

Think about this a moment. This means that a gazilla-milla-rilla-multizillion miles away, there’s another you sitting at your PC reading this, right at this moment. Well, relatively speaking (there is no “this moment” for such vast separations of distance – or is there?).

The question is, will my other me hop on that stationary bike gathering dust in the corner of the basement, or go out for two slices of pepperoni pizza and a 24-ounce diet coke?