The license plate number on the car that drove Franz Ferdinand to his appointment with destiny was just one of the remarkable incidents and experiences on record. In many cases, we can establish the relevant facts to the point where there is little doubt that the event has indeed occurred. We have no evidence suggesting someone has changed the licence plate. Perhaps science will explain these things in the future, as this universe may have properties we don’t yet know. Some have come up with explanations that let go of our understanding of time and cause and effect.

Our usual way of perceiving events is that something happens in a particular place at a specific time. We think of a place as a constant as time passes. Events in the past caused events happening now. And events in the present cause future events. The Allied invasion took place in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Normandy is still there, but 6 June 1944 is history. The liberation of Western Europe from German occupation is a consequence of D-Day. If D-Day had not happened, history would have taken a different turn. In this way, cause and effect work. That makes sense to us.

Perhaps, events connect in ways other than causality and time. The psychiatrist Carl Jung proposed a collective consciousness that connects all events through meaning. If you believe it, that can explain a few things, such as reincarnation accounts and premonitions. Perhaps the collective consciousness carries a deceased person’s memories into someone else or gives premonitions that come true. According to science, this is all total gibberish, not even worth a second of your thought, as it contradicts established laws of science. Only in a story can events connect via meaning.

Others think of time as a dimension, so you can travel to a time like you can travel to a place, even though nobody ever succeeded in doing that as far as we know. These ideas counter our traditional notion of cause and effect over time. But so does the theory of relativity. And the theory of relativity proved to be helpful, so we consider it to be true. Perhaps physics will one day explain premonitions.

A reference to the end date of World War I could thus have ended up on the licence plate of Franz Ferdinand’s car because of some connection we don’t yet know. No plausible explanation is available for that connection, but perhaps some property of this universe is still unexplained. And maybe both are true. All points in time might be connected in another way, while causality also applies. Physicists have to work with queer phenomena that are hard to explain. For example, light behaves like both particles and waves, but waves can’t be particles.

Alternatively, a time traveller could have put AIII 118 on the licence plate, even though the theory of relativity doesn’t allow for that. Time travel to the future may be possible, but going back in time creates logical problems. It would alter future events. And there is another fly in the ointment: chaos theory. Insignificant disturbances can have dramatic consequences. If I could go back to 1914 to screw a license plate with the combination AIII 118 on the car, that may derail the events that were about to occur, and World War I would not end on 11 November 1918 and perhaps not even have started. And sneezing can be enough to do the job, just like a butterfly in Texas can start a storm in China. It seems likely that the Austrian authorities issued the license plate. Plate AIII 118 probably came after AIII 117 and before AIII 119, so we can drop this imaginative scenario into the bin.

And look at what scientists are doing. Recent measurements confirmed the electron’s roundness to a record level of exactness. It deepened the mystery of why the universe consists of matter rather than antimatter. Any asymmetry in the electron’s shape would point to a related asymmetry in the laws of nature that could explain this feature of the cosmos.¹ Scientists were baffled. Metaphysical speculation also dominates science, and scientists imagine invisible friends like gravity and electrons to describe our world. And then they discover something suggesting that some of their imaginary friends may not exist. Well, who would have thought that?

Maybe we should let our imagination run free. Anything is possible if we can think of it and corroborate it with experiments. It is how science progresses. A piece of fruit could be an apple for as long as you look at it. And it can turn into a banana once you look the other way. Scientists believe that if experiments confirm it. Some particles turn into waves when you don’t look. Scientists might even base their theories on things that are impossible but do happen because we live inside a simulation. We don’t know that, of course, because we don’t know the properties of a genuine universe.

Some laws of this universe appear ridiculous. Only why should they make sense? Nature doesn’t exist to make sense to us. We can imagine that this universe is a simulation to avoid logical difficulties. It makes more sense than apples turning into bananas. Assuming the obvious, however, can be dangerous. If it quacks, walks, and swims like a duck, it might be a great actor in a duck suit. Apples could turn into bananas when you don’t look. Of course, when you place a camera to observe them, they don’t. And one plus one might only equal two after you have solved the equation. And if faith moves mountains, this universe could be genuine as long as you believe it is.

Latest revision: 19 July 2025

Featured image: Satire on False Perspective. William Hogarth (1754). Public Domain.

1. Electrons are extremely round, a new measurement confirms. Emily Conover (2023). Science News. [link]