The man who played God (original title Project Universe)

He had been thrown into the streets, his house taken away. Everyday, he had to feed himself by begging. Why? For he had absolutely no job expertise.


It shouldn't have been like this, he was on his way to fame and fortune, why did it have to be like this? He realised the only person to blame was himself.


It all began 6 months ago. A graduate student he was, the brightest one the university could hope to produce. Handpicked by the top scientists for supervision, he was the shining star of the scientific community. He may be all that, but he also has strange desires. Deep down inside him, he wanted to rule over millions, to be a God.


One day, he walked up confidently to his supervisor, and said 'I want to create a miniature universe!'


The supervisor was shocked, could this person really be that brilliant? What kind of stunt was he trying to pull? Create a miniature universe, no one can confidently say how our own universe works, and now someone's trying to build his own. Nevertheless, the supervisor asked him to explain. With all the confidence of a TV presenter, he proceded to draw out a remodelled version of the standard model, with all the mathematical oddities and geometry included. He pointed out how quarks could act as worlds, how atoms could act as solar systems. Effectively, he was combining the small and the big, into one big beautiful theory.


The supervisor was impressed. Every ten thousand years, a genius like this is produced, and he had the privelage of supervising one. The project was given the green light, and the student was given all the equipment he needed.


The challenge? Fit the entire universe into a fishbowl. The hypothesis was that the entire universe was created at a single instant called the Big Bang, the very beginning of time and space. The student had to find the exact conditions in which the Big Bang could occur, then observe it over a period of time. Now, creating the Big Bang was the easy part, at least for the student, how was he going to observe the universe? He would have to wait 15 billion years before conditions became like ours.


Undaunted, he first proceeded to make the Big Bang. Get the right particles from the particle accelerator, torture them under the right conditions, then arrange them in a nano-lattice following SU(3) symmetry. Then, after more configurations, chemical play and whatnot, arrange them into E8 symmetry, Put everything in the fishbowl and wait for ten minutes.


It was a brilliant success, after ten minutes, a bright flash of light was emitted form the fishbowl, and a mini fireball was formed in the centre. Everything had been carefully configured, so the temperature wasn't that hot, but still hot enough to form the mini-universe's version of atoms. The nature of these particles were unknown, for they were even smaller than quarks. According to theory, everything looked like how the early universe would have been, but now, the question was how patient were they?


The student and the supervisor knew they couldn't possibly wait billions of years, they had to find a way to speed up the process. How were they going to accelerate time in the fishbowl? The student and supervisor pondered for hours, days, weeks, over this problem. But there seemed to be no possible method.

Then one day, the student has the most brilliant idea ever. Black holes slows time down to a ridiculously slow pace, why not make a reverse black hole? The supervisor nearly laughed at the mention of this. A black hole hasn't even been made, now you're talking about a reverse black hole? The student then pointed out the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson, then explained how an extremely powerful quantum burst could reverse the effect of the boson and at the same time produce a singularity in space. This would mean obtaining energy out of nothing! It defies the very laws of conservation of energy! The student then pointed out that he has already broke this law when he created the mini big bang, and also the fact that this very law was broken the instant the universe was formed.

The supervisor was amazed, speechless to say the least. The student didn't waste any time indulging in praise. He flew over to the LHC and presented this idea to the scientists there. They agreed to help him, and 2 days later, the first miniature black hole was made by putting the Higgs Boson under great pressure. The next day, the reverse miniature black hole was made. It was different from the original black hole, nothing could come in! The repulsive gravitational force was so strong, it was almost impossible to find a container that could fit it. But find it they did, and the student placed the fishbowl within the vicinity.

Everything was great, 2 weeks passed and the fishbowl universe was now at the equivalent of 15 billion years. The observations over the fortnight had proved the student's hypothesis correct, that the universe he had created was exactly identical to the one we live in. It was literary a miracle. Out of nearly an infinite number of possibilities, this student produced the correct one. He became the youngest person to receive the Nobel prize, at the age of 24. He had beaten Einstein.

Now the student really let it get to his head. He began thinking, 'I've created a universe that's exactly like ours, would it be possible that there is life in this universe that is exactly like ours?"
Another proposal went over to his prof, and by now, the prof no longer wanted to supervise him.
'You've already surpassed the greatest scientist of the 20th century, there's no more I can teach you. Please, let an old man do his humble happy work.'

The student was very pleased about this, so he began to think of a way to extract a specimen from the universe. Now this was a question that stumped even him. By far, there is absolutely no such research or even mention about such a theory, of pulling a lifeform from a universe. It would be alien abduction. Needless to say, how was he going to even see if there was really life there in the first place? Staring at the blackish fishbowl, he began to ponder.

He realised he had no choice, he turned to religion.

All religion states the existance of a soul, and some religions hint at psychic energy, derived from the soul. The student hated religion, seeing it as scriptures written by opium smokers, but now he had no choice but to trust them. He had broken the limits of science, he had to turn to religion now.

The plan was to use a STM. Run the fishbowl through the STM and search for abnormalies within the structure of the universe. The hypothesis was that such abnormalies would indicate signs of intelligent life. Only problem was, the STM worked only on 2D surfaces. No one had used it to observe a 3D fishbowl. As such, the student bought 4 STMs from the university, deconstructed and remodelled them into the formation of a cross. Then, placing the fishbowl at the centre, he turned it on.

Indeed, the constant patterns displayed in the STM monitor did show abnormalities. It was a very peculiar thing, for these abnormalities only showed itself in rare areas of the universe. From the current understanding of our universe, there were many areas in which abnormalities could arise, like black holes or pulsars, but on closer investigation, the signatures didn't look at all like black holes or quasars. It was simply irregular, a massive chaos of fluctuations. The student believed those were the signs of intelligent life. Now the challenge was to extract it.

He had no idea which one of these areas were the replica of Earth, but he believed that Earth was the only place in the universe with our form of intelligent life. That means, he'll just keep extracting samples until he sees a mini-human, or other earth creature. Once again, using a much improved version of the STM, with a ridiculously thin tip, he probed the inside of the fishbowl at the specified locations.

After the third time, he got a strange result. The STM images showed signs of desperately struggling humans! The student was estatic! He had created life! Now how was he going to communicate with them?

The great genius instantly had another idea, locking the mini humans up in a specialised cell, he reconstructed the STM into a communication device. As he did so, evil thoughts ran through his head. 'These people may believe in a God, I am their God!'

The communication device was completed, and the student placed the tip of the modified STM into the cell. In an instant, terror-stricken and desperate faces were seen on the screen.

"Where are we! What are you!" screamed one frightened lady. The student looked around, there were at least 20 people in the cell. Some were lying unconscious, others stark raving mad. The lady and four others were the only sane people inside.

"I am God!" said the student in the best majestic voice he could produce. I created your universe in a fishbowl."

The student hadn't really taken note of the fact that the people also spoke English. He was already pretty confident that they would. On hearing his words, the woman fell to her knees and prayed. The other 4, who realised what was going on, began kneeling as well. The student was even more estatic, the miniature world had really developed exactly like ours, even the same religions existed! But could it be so precise? Was everything exactly the same?

The student decided to question the people on the history of their world. Everything, from what they told him, was exactly the same as the history of our world. There were a few different names, but everything else was the same! Eventually, he asked about his existance, and it really surprised him to learn that he never existed. Now that was strange, for if everything was exactly the same, how come he didn't make the contributions he had made in this world? How come no one made his discoveries? The date the mini-people told him were only a few days apart from his, he should have been there.

Could it be possible that the God of the world cannot exist as a human in the world he created? It seemed that way, but it didn't matter now, for he was the God of the fishbowl universe. He felt power like no other.

"People!" he bellowed in the microphone. "You have angered me over the centuries with your arrogance and materialism. You have forgotten me!" He was sure that the world would develop in that way as well. And he was right. When he said that, everyone suddenly became normal and knelt, praying for forgiveness. Now this was really getting to his head.

"As punishment, I'll destroy one of you!" Then, operating the STM, he picked up a hapless man and crushed him to bits, amongst his crying and begging. At that point, he put away the microphone and let out the most evil laugh a young man could possibly have. The other people cried and begged, while he continued to laugh. Yes! He had the power of a God to these people, he was God!

"I am merciful," he said back to the microphone, though it clearly didn't show through his actions. "I'll send you back to your world, tell them what you have seen and heard, tell them to worship me! Then, every night at ten, sacrifice a young maiden to perform an erotic dance for me! I'll be keeping contact."

God sent the people back via the STM, and all was good, at least for a while. The people went to spread the message to the rest of their world, but no one believed them. God knew this would happen, so he decided to make a communication link directly to the world in the fishbowl.

"I am God!" His booming voice echoed throughout the miniature Earth. "What these people said is true. To prove my existance, I will kill the leader of every country!" Through constantly taking out people for questioning, he had learnt the names and identities of all the leaders of the world. The challenge was of course, to find them. That he could do as well. Having set up the STM monitor, he began probing the frightened faces for the faces of the leaders. Upon seeing them, he sent an electric current through the STM tip and literary vaporised their bodies. The whole process took 2 hours, and by then, the world was already convinced.

God then said that the leaders were sin themselves, for they made the people forget Him. He said to atone for their sins, the people must worship him and send a maiden to perform an erotic dance for him anytime he asked for it. Naturally, he expected some to oppose him, so he quickly found those people and vaporised them as well. Their mistake for opposing him so openly. After a week, everyone in the world was already kotowing to him.

The student, with a new identity as a God, nevertheless decided to abuse his new position. He left science altogether and instead decided to entertain and amuse himself with the hapless denizens of mini-Earth. Being a super sadistic person, he would sometimes ask people to jump off buildings or set themselves on fire.

"It's a good thing when there's religion," he said to himself. "And you are the God!"

But being a God wasn't enough. The people of the mini-universe couldn't give him revenue. So he designed and built a molecular duplicating machine, which works on the principle of the Big Bang, creating mass-energy out of nothing. Now he could enlarge or shrink objects by duplicating it's molecules and rearranging the duplicated molecules into an enlarged version of the object.

"Bring me your currency!" He demanded to the people of his world. "Gather a total value of 1 billion US dollars and place it at the top of the Eiffel tower by 8pm GMT." So they did. After using the STM to extract the money, he placed them, a fraction of the total sum at a time, into the machine. Instantly, real money, from different areas of the world, showed up. He was delighted by now. He went to the currency exchange to convert it to his country's money. Now he was stinking rich!

"Being a God is the best business of all!"

Alas, it has been 6 months. The people of mini-Earth did not like this overbearing God. While many obeyed without question, there were some who secretly planned a way to get rid of him. By studying his movements, they realised that he wasn't omnipotent, like the God they knew from their Bible, nor was he in anyway compassionate. This God was a false one, and can be destroyed.

On the next money transfer, the God had the biggest surprise of all time. One minute he was admiring the little money that came out from the STM, then all of a sudden, he was in a different place. It was a large crossroad, and there were hundreds of people standing around him.

"He's human! Just like us!" exclaimed one girl.

"He's a heretic! Satan's child!" cried another woman who looked like a deranged maniac.

The student looked around, frightened and disbelieving.

"But...but how?"

"What's the matter? Big me?"

The voice...it was so familiar, it was his voice!

Turning around, he saw an exact replica of himself, standing facing him, with his arms folded.

"No...you weren't supposed to exist!"

The other him let out a laugh.

"I exist alright, but fortunately I didn't turn out as crazy as you. I am still finishing my university studies and am contributing to research, but no, I haven't made my name yet, probably that's why you never heard of me."

The student was horrified. He had been so full of himself that he assumed that if he ever existed, he would be as famous as he was in his own world.

"Well, I'll be now," continued the other him. "After observing you, I deduced many hypotheses and concluded that you are indeed our creator, but a sadistic one. I understand that without you, our world could be destroyed any instant, but believe me, we'd rather die than have a bitch of a god like you! And what the hell, you are really my image!"

"But...how....?"

The student realised that this person was as bright as he was, just more modest and open-minded. He deduced that God had been taking money from the people by using a STM, and that the communication links were also by a modified STM. He had seen everything that his crazy self had been doing. He managed to reverse everything, from taking the creator into the universe by a reverse STM, and by shrinking him to pico size by a reverse of his molecular duplicator. He had defeated himself.

"No...I am God! You must obey me!"

"My son died because you told him to jump off the building!" cried one man.

"My daughter was forced to do erotic dances on the street for your entertainment!"

The mob was now coming closer to him, what was he going to do?

"GOD!!!!!" his cried echoed throughout the streets. The mob charged at him, beating him with sticks and clubs.

"Don't use His name in vain, you bitch!"

The mob abused him physically and verbally. He was helpless now, there was no way he could escape it.

The ground began to shatter, the Earth shook. The mob stopped beating him up and wondered what was happening. All of a sudden, the Earth split open, crying the lament of its creator. Hundreds of people fell to the dark abyss, and the student was sent hurtling back to his world.

The student awoke, he was lying down on his lab floor. Looking up, he was shocked to see his other self from the mini world sitting on his chair.

"The Earth felt the pain when your psychic energy turned ugly," said the other him. "It destroyed itself to save you. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? The universe you created loved you so much, yet you treated it like scum. In the end, it even gave up its own life to save you."

The student shook his head.

"No...The universe...the universe isn't alive!"

His other him sneered.

"Man, and I thought the me in this world was as smart as me, you don't understand one bit about fractal consciousness, don't you?"

Actually he did, he had forgotten about it over his lust for power. The universe was alive because we are alive. We are part of a universal consciousness, it is a basic law of the chaos theory.

"I came out as well because I was you," said the other him. "Look, the universe in the fishbowl is gone."

Indeed, the fishbowl was now an empty fishbowl. The universe he had created had disappeared, sacrificing itself to save him. Suddenly, his guilt set in, and he cried like a father longing for a long lost child. The other him shook his head.

"I'm going to do some plastic surgery on myself and change my name, I can imagine the mess you created for yourself in this world."

The other him walked out, and was never seen again. A few days later, the student lost his house, and was thrown into the streets. In an ironic twist of fate, his house had been brought by his other self, under a completely different name. The money he had taken from the mini-universe had somehow fallen into his hands. Now he is begging, for he can't do work. A god doesn't do menial work, a false god as well, but the false god must beg.

In another place, another time, the professor watched a fishbowl universe under the protection of highly sophisticated instruments. He saw the version of himself in that fishbowl meet his downfall, and shook his head. Turning to the heavens, he wondered.

Just how many fishbowls were there?