“I don’t believe it,” he rumbled, while putting his cigarette out in the dusty ashtray. The well-worn disposal mirrored the overall cleanliness of the bar, which had half-rusted iron shelving and enough of a lingering smell to make you think that the patrons were going for a ‘before-air-freshener-was-invented’ kind of rustic vibe.

         “I don’t believe it either, Alex.” 

         The Seahawks had won their football game against the 49ers, 27-20. That itself wasn’t very surprising; they were both great teams and going in everyone had expected a close contest. Also unsurprising was the triumph of the Vikings over the Saints, 17-13.  What WAS surprising – and what the announcers now kept commenting on – is the fact that these wins left the Seahawks and the Vikings in a perfect tie for the wild card playoff spot.

         “Well the fans of one team sure are gonna be pissed,” Alex continued, plucking away at the leftover fries from his meal. For context, the NFL has 7 tiebreakers in descending priority, from overall record to a last resort coin toss. Only, given what’s used as tiebreakers, the final listed coin toss seemed more like a formality. The sheer improbability that two teams have 1) the same record at home, 2) on the road, 3) against each other, and 4) points scored for and 5) points scored against over all of their 16 games, is ludicrous. But here we were, with two games leading to a final outcome of exactly that.

         “I mean, at least the unlucky ones can pretend their team would’ve made it to the Super Bowl. People like being victims when it doesn’t actually affect them much,” Nick replied. Personally, Nick had no stake in the games. His home team was already removed from contention, so he was happy to watch whatever drama ensued.

         “And at least it makes for a good story,” he continued. “This has never happened before and almost certainly will never happen again, so why not be happy to be a part of it?” Alex grunted a reply, probably in affirmation but Nick could never be certain.

         “Does this mean the coin toss is going to be televised? Do they do it after the game or elsewhere, another time or what?” Alex asked. Nick had no clue so he didn’t respond and instead looked toward the TV, waiting for an answer to reveal itself.

________________________________

         “Alright gentlemen, here it is. This side with the large face is ‘Heads,’ and the side with the football is ‘Tails.’ Which side do you choose?” The referee asked, turning towards the Seahawks representative.

         “Heads,” their Quarterback replied. The fans at the stadium were continuing to roar, urging the coin to flip in their favor. The ref made elaborate hand gestures showing the coin and then, finally, flipped it. A stadium of breaths caught as the coin seemed to fall in slow motion, spinning helplessly. Finally it hit the turf and stopped, firmly balanced on its edge.

         “Wow…” the TV commentator muttered. The referee delicately lifted the coin back up, clearing his throat and chuckling, “well that was unexpected. Another try.” Once again, a grand gesture demonstrating the coin, and a flip: and the coin twirled casually to land on its edge, as though lodged that way in the turf for decades.

________________________________

         “Do you follow football at all?” Marcus asked, determined to fill the momentary void of conversation. Honestly, Kelly hadn’t minded the pause, as the small talk was draining and she was close to making an excuse to pull herself away.

         “No, but I’ve seen the headlines. They kept flipping a coin and it kept landing on its side, right? Some sports cheating scandal, what else is new…” she responded.

         “Yeah, they kept trying different coins too though. The first one seemed fake after all, though I don’t think it’s possible to weigh a coin to its edge. Or maybe it is? I’m not sure, it’s been a long time since I took physics.”

         Football didn’t really mean anything to Kelly so she hadn’t kept a close eye on the news. There were more important things going on in the world, after all. Still, it would help to know the gist for other, inevitably-draining casual conversations. Plus, the story did seem rather strange; one could see why a lot of people were giving it attention.

         She asked, “So what are they going to do about it? Are they going to draw straws now?”

         “They’re still deciding. I don’t think they will keep using a coin though. They tried two flips on a slanted surface and the first time it landed on its edge parallel to the slant and just sorta… rolled down. On the second try some random bird snatched the coin mid-flip. Pretty spooky, no? Some people are taking it as a sign that neither team should make it into the playoffs or something.”

         “A sign? Like, from God? Why would he care about football?”

         “Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s silly. Have enough time and events and every crazy thing is bound to happen. It’s just that you only remember the unlikely ones, so it makes it seem like unlikely shit happens all the time. I think this is just one of those.”

         Strange indeed. Kelly thought to herself that she could ask Barry and see what he thinks of it; football seemed very much up his alley. First though, she would need to find a chance to excuse herself.

________________________________

         “So, what do you think?” Jacob asked Andrea.

         Andrea looked from the document back over to him. “You want to offer the use of our Stern-Gerlach device to help decide the outcome of a football game?”

         “No no no no nono. The game outcomes are already decided, this is just for a playoff spot. Plus, think of all the coverage we would get! We wouldn’t necessarily mention it on any grant proposals but the newfound attention and interest would pay for itself ten times over in the long run! Double plus, think of how crazy this story is. If you’re not having a crisis of faith right now, maybe you should be. Does some cosmic power exist but care only about a random year of football playoffs? Could this situation really just be the result of dumb – no, insanely crazy stupid luck? I think we should try it.”

         “What situation? What could they possibly need the use of a Stern-Gerlach device for?”

         “Well, every tiebreaker they’ve decided on so far has been a spectacular bust. Anytime something can result in neither outcome or both at once, it somehow finds a way to. Like, when they had players each think of random numbers in their heads, they kept coming up with the same number. Similarly, when they tried Rock-Paper-Scissors, they went through like ten tie games before deciding it was hopeless. I thought that at a certain point one of the teams would just get tired of the absurdity and give it to the other one, or negotiate a trade deal for some earlier draft pick. But it seems like each team really, really wants it.”

         Andrea furrowed her brow. She had been too busy with research to really follow the news of the last couple of days, but began to wonder if maybe she should have given it more attention. She started to brood on the possibilities. Has there ever been a crazier coincidence in history? There has been a lot of history after all. And if there’s a multiverse of every possible chain of events, surely some people must live in one with such a chain of absurdity. Still, the odds seemed unlikely. If it’s not a coincidence, does that mean there exists some higher influence that seems to care very specifically about the outcome of some football playoffs? As opposed to any of the ongoing wars and pandemics? It doesn’t even seem to want a specific team in the playoffs, just that their final results be so dramatically even. As possible evidence for a God it gave Andrea a flicker of hope in the afterlife. Then again, since this one didn’t seem to conform to the expectations of the Judeo-Christian God, maybe not. As a physicist, she would have to investigate.

         After seeing that she wasn’t going to reply anytime soon, Jacob resumed his appeal.

“What I was thinkkiiinng was that all of these tiebreakers were flawed in that they allow an indecisive outcome. In other words, the tiebreakers can result in an event that is neither or both at the same time. What we need is an event that is both unbiased and permits no alternative outcomes, so I was thinking we could measure the spin of an electron! It will necessarily be either ‘top’ or ‘bottom’. And if it’s somehow something else, we would kick-off a Nobel prize-winning search into some new undiscovered physics!”

________________________________

         “And now, we ALSO have the latest on the NFL’s Tiebreaker Fiasco. A recent attempt by researchers at the University of Wyoming to use a quantum measurement to break the tie resulted in disastrous equipment malfunction. The lab’s lead researcher Dr. Andrea Lopera commented that this type of measurement had been made thousands of times in the past, and was thoroughly tested before the official evaluation. She continued that the breakdown of equipment was completely unexpected, and unbelievably seemed correlated to designating that particular measurement as the NFL’s official tiebreaker. The exact material cause was later discovered to be the failure of a voltage gate in regulating power to one of the machine’s subsystems, which led to a short-circuit.” 

         “In related news, some are starting to criticize the NFL’s process for even forcing a tiebreaker, claiming that this is a clear sign that neither team deserves to be in the playoffs. The NFL commissioner has decided to hold a closed-door conference tomorrow with team owners and league managers to discuss the next steps, and has stated he has not yet ruled out disallowing both teams in the upcoming playoffs. He has also invited Dr. Henry Hurzinger, a prominent statistician, and Dr. Roger Minley, a prolific theologian, to this meeting. We will keep you updated on all breaking tie-breaking news, here on CNBT. Now, we turn to a special report by our health correspondent: ‘Is organic food causing teenage pregnancy?”

________________________________

         Henry Hurzinger was thinking he had had a life’s fill of sitting in large creaky board rooms with a bunch of old guys. He supposed it was unfair to criticize though, when technically he was helping add to the old guys count. Furthermore, the subject matter at hand here was significantly more gripping than his average research meetings.

         “Thank you all for coming,” the NFL’s director, John Hammel, began. “You all are aware of the situation. We must first decide whether a tiebreak should be sought, and if so, with what methodology. I am currently leaning towards forgoing a tiebreak and holding the playoffs one team short, but I would like to hear every angle and opinion available here. I imagine the team owners may be displeased by this.”

         “Not at all,” chimed in the owner of the Minnesota Vikings. Henry had forgotten his name, but noticed there was a small mustard stain on his shirt.

         “Frankly I am a god-fearin’ man,” Mustard-shirt continued, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sign as clear as day as this. I would resign the spot willingly, if I didn’t think that it is clear that the Lord wants neither of our teams in the playoffs. That said, I am very curious what our resident theologian has to say on the matter.” He gestured forward towards Dr. Minley.

         Dr. Minley cleared his throat. “I think I would agree. It is not strange that God would give signs through mediums people admire, such as when Jesus turned water into wine, or signs with obfuscated meanings, such as Jacob’s dream of the ladder of angels. I do not believe God’s gesture here truly has to do with the football playoffs, but instead is meant as a message informing some greater purpose. As to exactly what, I am left in the dark. My current theories are that it has to do with ruthless competition, and speaks to ongoing war tensions with Iran or the pervasive Darwinian mindset in our society and politics. Surely though, these events cannot seem to me anything other than the work of a higher power, and it would be very foolish to try to subvert them through increasingly elaborate tiebreaking schemes.”

         John Hammel: “Your thoughts, Dr. Hurzinger? Can we be certain now that these events are not the products of chance?”

         Henry had spent a sleepless night preparing for this moment, and was ready to bring out his big guns.

         “Gentlemen, it is painfully clear to me that the events so far cannot, within reason, be approached as the result of mere coincidence. My rough estimate of the cumulative odds so far would be 1 in 2 thousand-trillion-trillion-trillion. That denominator’s way larger than the number of nanoseconds since the Big Bang.”

         Many in the room nodded assent, as their expectations were corroborated.

         “Nonetheless, I believe that we might actually be at a grand turning point in human history, where on one path we have a status quo of incremental development, and in the other we have an elevation of the entire human race to the summit of Olympus. We have on our hands a situation that is nothing short of magical! And with careful, deliberate steps, we can exploit it to solve war, hunger, mortality, suffering, and everything in between. We indeed have a solemn obligation to neither break the tie, nor advance the playoffs.”

         The room was quiet for a moment. John Hammel broke the silence, “Care to explain what you mean, Dr. Hurzinger? How do we solve world hunger with a wildcard playoff tiebreaker?”

         “Well, as a rough example, imagine if we officially set the tiebreaker as follows: ‘if a greater number of people starve tomorrow in the Northern hemisphere, the Vikings advance to the playoffs. And if a greater number of people starve tomorrow in the Southern hemisphere, or if the two hemispheres are tied in a non-zero number of starvations, the Seahawks advance to the playoffs.’ With this  _{admittedly convoluted}  construction, the only way for the tie to not break is if nobody starves anywhere in the globe that day. I call it a rough example because there’s a number of complications we will have to account for. For instance, what if the reason no one starves tomorrow is because a bout of cannibalism infects all those about to starve, so that those who would starve either eat another person nearby or get eaten themselves or killed in self-defense? Additionally, with any of these grand, world-wide set-ups, it seems we may risk a sudden solar flare or giant meteor strike wiping out the human race and with it the ability to actually measure the outcome of the tiebreaker. Just like how the quantum measurement equipment short-circuited. So, I think we will need to construct our tiebreakers with great care and somewhat smaller goals, but with it we could still uplift humanity one step at a time.”

         Dr. Minley cleared his throat once again, clearly distressed. “This suggestion is absurd, Dr. Hurzinger. We cannot toy around with the signs of God for our own self-interest! Or we will almost certainly invite misfortune.”

         Henry shrugged. “Well, maybe this is a gift FROM God. What if our intended effects are not self-interested? If we tried to leverage this phenomenon to help cure cancer, would that anger God as well? ”

         “I cannot claim to know God’s intention or reaction, but I believe that the way things are now are indeed the way he intended them to be.”

         Dr. Hurzinger paused. His lips pursed in a cursory and quiet examination of his own life without God. After a moment, he continued in a restrained voice: “If the current misfortune in the world is a result of human choice gone awry, Dr. Minley, then let us try to execute that same free will here to fix things. If God chose it purposefully, then I have no intention of supplicating to such evil. Do you know what was written on the walls of a Nazi concentration camp? A prisoner had written: ‘if there is a God, he will have to beg my forgiveness.’ We have in our hands a chance to significantly curtail human suffering and bring about a new age of human prosperity. It would be ridiculous to ignore this opportunity, and a good God ought to forsake any man who does so. But we should be careful, altruistic, and start small.”

         With this the room was again still. Most eyes roamed towards the NFL commissioner, tacit expectation that he was to ultimately sort out this supernatural debacle. The owner of the Seattle Seahawks quipped inwardly that Mr. Hammel would still be a better arbiter than Congress these days.

________________________________

         It was getting pretty late, and there was still so much paperwork to deal with. Always more paperwork. She rubbed her eyes in exasperation. Of course, there was no strict need to deal with it right now, but every second counted in these matters, so there was always some pressure to do as much as possible. Dr. Sonya Vaidehi sighed, deciding that she could use a quick walk/smoke break before continuing. She got out of her chair, stepped outside her office, and strolled down the hall.

         The rest of the building, hall included, was immaculately clean. Egg-white tile floors and shining calico marble walls flaunted the tireless efforts of cleaning staff. This was in stark contrast to Dr. Vaidehi’s own office, which looked as though tiny, localized tornadoes were a frequent source of concern. Down the hall was the atrium, and in it various bronze statues lined the rounded walls.

         She glanced to her right as she passed into the open room, eyeing the statue of Dr. Hurzinger, the first director of the OSVTC (the Official Seahawks-Vikings Tiebreaking Council). She was the sixth director, and felt like she had much to live up to. Dr. Hurzinger was bold and creative in establishing the organization, and demonstrated its immense value by precipitating breakthrough cancer treatments with collaboration with the American Cancer Society. While the obvious solution, of course, would be a tiebreaker worded so that a cancer treatment must be discovered in order to produce a tie, he had decided that such grand schemes would too recklessly invite worldwide destruction (à la “equipment malfunction”). Instead he worked closely with scientists to see what small discoveries or revelations would provide the most benefit, and targeted tiebreakers to these. With this, he quickly established the organization’s value and efficacy. Other brilliant ideas of his included overlapping, continuously-active tiebreaks, such as those that threaten to break the tie in the case of purely self-interested tiebreaks or third-party interference, as well as an initial, rudimentary process for applying for and approving new tiebreaking policies. The OSVTC has since become a mainstay of global politics and a whole heap of bureaucracy has been hastily piled on. Though she was never director in those days, Dr. Vaidehi still pined for the past autonomy the director could act with.

         The world had changed tremendously since Dr. Hurzinger’s time. Though he was a brilliant founder, his work was just the tip of the iceberg. Tiebreaking “physics” had since been used to help increase the human lifespan to 120, create working cold fusion power plants, and even reverse some rather worrying trends in climate change. Ongoing efforts were even more ambitious. One of Dr. Vaidehi’s favorite current projects regarded the creation of small entropy-decreasing devices… infinite time and energy could be at humanity’s beck and call! Her heart pulsed quicker with the thought.

         Feeling her own sudden excitement, Dr. Vaidehi reminded herself that there was still a long way to go for the project to be realized. Between now and then lay the many heaps of paperwork at her desk.

________________________________

         Though countless OSVTC advancements had led to great reduction in human suffering around the world, Dr. Vaidehi’s febrile dreams were currently still beyond their ken. A consequence of the great responsibility bestowed on her, perhaps.

         In one such dream, she was drifting in a dark and empty corner of space. Distant pinpricks of light backlit an otherwise empty canvas, and a calm cold surrounded her. There was nothing to do but stare at the tiny yet vast galaxies beyond.

         After a long while of placid drifting, she felt a presence. A presence in and around the void, staring through her to the myriad stars beyond. 

         A casual, wandering glare. And then the gaze locked, attention rising, on some distant, unremarkable dot. 

         Thoughts were wondered aloud, humming across Dr. Vaidehi’s mind, about some abnormality which was causing undesired effects. Annoyance and some kindred, well-known exasperation flowed through her. And then an inward sigh, mildly shuddering the space around. Frenetic thoughts flashed through the dynamics of particle physics and quantum mechanics and briefly on how all of physics is just a spaghetti-fied mess at this point… and how the HELL is THIS actually happening. This will take a lot of work to fix – hopefully it does not need everything to be restarted. 

         The mind peered closer at the buggy planet in the unending terminal of stars, and saw the people that lived there. It looked with reserved curiosity and amusement and wondered if they had reached a stage of advancement where even after the fix, this anomaly would hardly be missed…? Or, alternatively, maybe such a change would spark off a war of some kind. Given the race’s history, the entity was not inclined to bet against the latter. 

         Oh well, it mused; and it got to work.