[Setting: The Simpsons’ living room. Bart and Lisa are bickering on the couch. Marge walks in with a laundry basket, sets it down, sighs, and sits between them.]
MARGE:
Okay, okay! That’s enough, you two! I’ve been listening to this argument for an hour while folding Homer’s… unmentionables, and I can’t take it anymore. Bart, Lisa, sweethearts—cuties are real. But not the way you think, Bart.
Now sit up straight. Mama’s gonna get quantum on you.
[Bart slouches harder. Lisa lights up like a nerdy Christmas tree.]
So, you know how when you cut a sandwich in half, it’s two sandwiches, right? Bart, you keep saying cuties are like that—two things that used to be one, so they still feel each other. Like, “Ow! My cutie twin stubbed their toe and I felt it!”
Well… that’s actually kind of how real science thinks the universe works. It’s called quantum entanglement.
[Lisa gasps.]
LISA: Oh! Yes! It’s when particles become—
MARGE (raising a finger):
Let Mama finish, sweetie.
So! Imagine two tiny, teeny particles. Like… not even dust-speck small. Smaller. They get made together, like twins in the tiniest cosmic womb. And when they do, it’s like the universe says: “You two are linked now. Forever. No take-backs.”
Now here’s the bananas part: you take one of those particles and fling it to the other side of the universe. Like, literally—billions of light years away. And the other one stays, say, here in Springfield.
If you poke the one way out there—like, give it a little spin—the one here reacts instantly. Faster than light. Like a cosmic “OW!” across space.
That’s entanglement. Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance.” He hated it. Thought it was too weird. But turns out, nature loves being weird.
BART:
Wait wait wait—so you’re telling me my idea is right?!
MARGE:
Ehhhhhhh. Not exactly, Bart. You think it’s like… you and Milhouse can feel each other’s emotions because you high-fived once. That’s not how this works. Entangled particles are tied together by how they were made, not by friendship bracelets or head-butts or whatever you boys do.
It’s not magic. It’s quantum physics. And the weirdest part? This is how everything works deep down. Our whole universe is built on teeny invisible stuff that follows these strange rules. Probabilities, entanglements, things being in two places at once until you look at them—
LISA:
Like Schrödinger’s cat!
MARGE:
Yes, honey! Except if Snowball II were in the box, we’d hear her scratching by now.
BART:
So, like… could I be entangled? Like with some evil Bart in space?
MARGE:
Well, not you as a whole person. But maybe a little part of you. A particle in your hair gel, maybe.
BART:
Radical.
LISA:
It’s incredible. So the universe is fundamentally non-local, probabilistic, and—
MARGE:
—And also, I still expect you both to clean your rooms. Even if an entangled version of you already did it in another universe.
Now, who’s hungry? All this quantum talk makes me want to collapse a lasagna wave-function into reality.
MARGE’S TAKEAWAY (in her voice):
The universe is stranger than it looks, kids. Quantum entanglement means even the tiniest pieces of matter can stay connected no matter how far apart they are. It’s not magic—it’s just the way reality works when you zoom way, waaay in. Now pass the casserole.