NOVEMBER 21, 2021

COHERENCE (2014)
PID :CA182917 NID: 5458205

CAMERON CRAIN
 Coherence (2014)

Coherence is a sci-fi film that takes us into a world of quantum physics and alternate
realities. It depicts 8 friends who are at a dinner party and find themselves face to face with
themselves from an alternate reality. It is quite an interesting idea for a film, and one thing I
found interesting was that when the power went out it only went out at the house they were in
and the house down the street. Typically, one would think that if the power was going to go out
in multiple houses on the same street, the entire street would lose power but this scene is just the
beginning of the strange occurrences that take place in the film.

“There is another theory: that two states continue to exist separate and decoherent from
each other, each creating a new branch of reality based on the two outcomes. Quantum
decoherence ensures that the different outcomes have no interaction with each other…So we’re
in the box. We’re the cat. We’re both alive and dead. So, there are two separate realities,
presumably until the comet passes.”

This quote is the basis of quantum physics and that multiple events are usually
independent, but because of the comet, they begin to overlap with each other. This is the big part
of the movie that all these events that are occurring are independent events that are becoming put
together and overlapping with each other. “Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum
coherence. In quantum mechanics, particles such as electrons are described by a wave function, a
mathematical representation of the quantum state of a system; a probabilistic interpretation of the
wave function is used to explain various quantum effects. As long as there exists a definite phase
relation between different states, the system is said to be coherent. A definite phase relationship
is necessary to perform quantum computing on quantum information encoded in quantum states.
Coherence is preserved under the laws of quantum physics.”

Now, what does this quote above tell us? Well, let's dissect it first by talking about the
definite phase between two states which makes a system coherent. Essentially, when two things
have an untethered relationship they are coherent and mix together. So, within this movie, the
multiple realities are coherent with each other. Showing us that they are similar but also contain
several differences that prevent them from being identical to one another. Even with these
differences, alternate realities are happening at the same time and strangely enough in this film,
they begin to overlap with each other.

Another interesting part about this film was learning about superposition, and I learned
that most of this film referenced a book called The Many Interpretations. This takes about the
various events of superposition and events decoupling from each other, evolving independently,
and existing in their own classic realities. An example of the concept being portrayed in the film
happened when the comet came into the plotline. Once the comet appears, it seems that events
that would usually be independent in nature somehow started to overlap at this time.

During the movie, one of the characters, Em, talks about the Tunguska event. Now, this
was an actual event that happened in Eastern Serbia. It happened over Podkamennaya Tunguska
River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai on June 30th, 1908. An explosion flattened trees for
miles leaving no debris or impact site. On Feb 15th, 2013, a similar but smaller event happened
over Chelyabinsk, Russia, and blew out more than a million windows and injured over 1000
people in six cities.” Now these events didn’t cause a void to open in the earth and different
realities to start to happen, but I thought it was nice that they brought in a real-world experience
that happened.

During this movie, everyone in the house makes decisions that create a new and unusual
universe to form. Every single time a choice or decision is made, a new reality will be created.
The dark space that they travel through acts as a portal to a new universe and alternate reality
that they are transported to. They soon learn that they cannot go back to the reality that came
from, and each reality has subtle differences with the characters and objects around them. As you
learn the characters, you begin to notice that even their emotions and hobbies change as these
alternate realities are created and the characters are transported through them. While the details
that change can be minor, they are undoubtedly different. This addition to the storyline suggests
that although the decisions the character made were independent, they initiated the creation of an
entirely different reality based on the outcome of their decision.

This led me to believe that really the bridge is a black hole that was opened up by the
comet that appeared over the household in which these characters are in throughout the film. The
reason I believe this is because in a black hole event you are transported to wherever the black
hole leads, and you cannot go back the other way. I wonder if we sent a human into a black hole
whether it would change them physically or not. Would it change your mental state? Where
exactly would this black hole take someone to and what are the contributing factors that would
determine this destination? Like the film when each character's decisions caused them to be
transported to a new alternate reality. Many of these thoughts are just theories and haven't been
tested by science yet.

I thought this film brought together a lot of cool elements within the world of science and
physics. There was a lot to be learned within this film, and I thought it was also fun to watch. I
can only imagine if something like this were to happen how I would react. While I enjoyed the
film, I don’t know if I would be too thrilled to see a comet at the next dinner party I attend. It
really pushed that there could be alternate realities.

This is by far my biggest belief that there are a bunch of different realities surrounding
us, and we are just one of the many multiverses that are out there. It always made me question if
aliens were real or is it the fact that we are the aliens in this world. Except every world it’s the
same people but different surroundings, thoughts and emotions.
 Works Cited

Concepcion, Jason. “'Coherence': The Best Sci-Fi Movie of 2014 That You Haven't Seen.”
Grantland, 20 Aug. 2014, https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/coherence-the-best-
sci-fi-movie-of-2014-that-you-havent-seen/.

“Quantum Decoherence.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Nov. 2021,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence.

Tracy PalmerAs the TV/Streaming Editor for Signal Horizon. “Coherence Explained- What Em
Did, Quantum Physics, and Multiple Universes.” Signal Horizon Magazine, 4 Aug. 2020,
https://signalhorizon.com/coherence-explained-what-em-did-quantum-physics-and-
multiple-universes/.