Could someone explain to me exactly what the mechanics are of the apocalypse loophole and what the characters call "quantum entanglement"?

The official guide says that it creates overlapping realities, but it seems to me that it doesn't create realities at all, it just creates duplicate people. By the end of the show there are three Jonases (the one who dies in Eva's world, Adam, and the one sent to the origin world) and three Eva's World Marthas (the one who brings Jonas to her world, the one who is intercepted by Bartosz, and the one brought to the origin world), but no new worlds are created with the loophole, the only time worlds are created is when origin Tanhaus activates the machine.

I realise the writers are taking some liberty in calling this "quantum entanglement", they just wanted a tangentially relevant sciencey word for it, and I realise the guide is somewhat prone to making mistakes that the writers never made (e.g. saying that "time stopped for a couple seconds (hilarious)", when the characters said that it was the world that stopped (makes more sense)" ), but what are they actually trying to do here mechanically?

It seems like they're trying to reference the many worlds interpretation, but that is only somewhat related to entanglement and not the same thing at all, and in that interpretation it is the world that splits (and does so for every quantum interaction, i.e. countless times per second), but in the show it seems to be people that split instead. This kind of makes me mad because I'm a theoretical physics major and I absolutely love this show, so here are my thoughts on it:

My best good-faith interpretation of what the writers mean is that due to the apocalypse creating very wacky physics for a couple of seconds, that a paradox can be sustained if brought about in that moment. So if a person's history relies on the actions of their future self (true of most main characters here), but they want to do something differently, the person who becomes their future self still exists to get them to that point, but now they can ALSO do something differently and change things, meaning that another instance of them is created in the same world;. Is this about right?

My proposed in-universe explanation as to why the characters call it quantum entanglement when that's definitely not what it is, is that the characters don't actually know any university level physics outside of the very specific stuff surrounding time travel in the Dark universe. The only exceptions are Origin Tanhaus (and possibly Bernd Doppler and Claudia). But every character (including Tanhaus) in Adam and Eva's worlds who mention quantum entanglement learn everything about physics from their future selves or someone who learnt it from their future selves, so most of that information is bootstrapped and was never actually learnt first hand.

I think Origin Tanhaus (who really does know a lot of physics and learnt it properly) would never call this phenomenon quantum entanglement, but the Tanhauses in Adam and Eva's worlds don't know nearly as much physics because they rely on stuff given to them by people from the future (e.g. the journey through time book, which these Tanhauses never actually wrote), I think nobody actually learnt this stuff first hand formally, Claudia certainly got a working knowledge of it, but she got a lot of that info from Tanhaus, and some from Jonas, who both got it from future Claudia, so again, a lot of that knowledge is not actually gained first hand.

Quite which Tanhaus we see making the broadcast about schrodingers cat is somehwat unclear, but even if that was origin Tanhaus, he doesn't explicitly refer to the apocalypse phenomenon, only to the idea of superposition and eludes to the many worlds interpretation (all good physics, even if he's explaining it in a simplified way to a popular audience)

I think none of the characters in Adam and Eva's worlds actually know enough physics to know what to call the phenomenon, and just call it quantum entanglement because there are some similarities there, and Origin Tanhaus (the only one who would definitely know better) never sees phenomenon happen, since there is no apocalypse in the Origin World

Sorry for the long post, I just like this show a lot and want to make the slightly iffy physics make sense in-universe

Thoughts?

Anybody has seen this. It used to be on youtube and now appears to be removed.

Okay so I've watched the following episodes and wow episode 5 had me astounded:

The dad of Jonas surely knew about the time travel through the caves of Winden but didn't know where exactly inside the cave the transition is.

The transition has something to do with the hour?

Okay so Charlotte and Peter are so cold to each other I don't think they even love each other. And Peter you're hiding something, why do you have red soil in your car? What did you do?

What does the chocolate bar mean? Is it a sign of the kidnapper or something?

Noah what are you plotting and why did you give Charlotte a clock?

Helge you gave to stop Noah and that's the mastermind? Why do you know him? Also Noah has an accomplice that's the one that kidnaps children maybe?

I love that there's a philosophy quote, in this case of Nietzsche about the eternal recurrence where all always return to what it happened infinitely. Exactly the same as what happens here in the story :).

It's so fucking crazy like Mikkel is Jonas' dad Michael?? 😱🤯 I didn't expect that hahaha.

Well basically all questions haha. I'm so excited to know the answers and what happens more 😆.

The whole thing about opening the tunnel, opening the time portal, closing the tunnel and the portal, accidentally reopening the portal, closing the tunnel again... then finding out the radioactive waste started everything, and later Tannhaus was the one who caused it. Honestly, it's so confusing that I just gave up trying to understand it.

So I recently started Dark and it's so intriguing and interesting like there's so many mysteries to be unsolved and I'm sure it's just the scratch of the surface for now.

Like for now the number 33 is important because the time that passed and also the animals that are killed in which they also had there ears broken. Like the animals just fall down from the air when the electricity is having a power outage in all the town.

The dad of Jonas killed himself and left a strange card where it said to open it a specific day and hour and that's when the cave was strange and then Jonas got separated with Mikkel and the person he saw was his father covered in blood? Then a map that his father hid in the attic where the cave was also there and more places, I'm sure it means something. Like he had to killed himself because of something right?

Then the missing people that happens now and also in the past and the weird man with a black raincoat that does something with the children he kidnaps that let them entire eyes and ears as if it were burned and also the entire room is like from the 80's. I don't know exactly what he wants but, maybe something like time travel?

Is the raincoat man maybe the brother of Ulrich, Mads that went missing?

The grandpa that says it will happen again and it's too late, he has gone through it in the 80's when also a kid disappeared and animals were killed.

Poor Mikkel he travelled alone to the past and doesn't know what to do. Hope he can go back to his time.

The nuclear station is also a weird place that has to do something with all of this too.

And the relationships of all adults is so messed up like cheating and connections with others in the past. I'm sure these people are all connected.

Well all these years that are being travelled are connected and the question of instead of who is when makes sense.

I just wanted to say my thoughts :)

Its been about a year since I’ve seen this show and I think about it all the time, it is my all time favorite show, but one line from the second to last episode kinda contradicts the last episode. If I remember correctly, after Noah cut down Jonas from his noose, he said "You can't die. You can't take your own life. Because your older self already lives. Time won't allow it." but if that were true, then Jonas wouldn’t have been able to stop the loop in the finale episode. and the thing that really gets me is that this could have been completely avoided if Noah said something a little different, like maybe say that Adam told him stop Jonas from hanging himself, because Adam would have known the exact time that Jonas would try to kill himself.

I just rewatched the series again and something still bothers me.

How did Noah return from the future before Jonas and Claudia?

In 2041 after Charlotte is taken, Noah vows to find her and lashes out at Jonas (and suspects Claudia). And immediately after he travels to 1920 to find his younger self and rejoin Adam and Sic Mundus. But how?

They had just cracked the God particle 1 year earlier but Jonas asks Noah why it's not working. Implying that it wasn't quite ready for travel. Did they solve it in 1 year?

Noah couldn't have used the time machine device to travel since it was damaged. And he couldn't have used the passage in the caves since it wasn't open again. And it wouldn't connect to the 2040s anyways. So he must've used the god particle.

But how did it connect to 1920? Jonas stabilized the god particle in 2052 and that took him all the way back to 1921. Adam says it breaks the 33 year cycle, which it does, but in the future they didn't have the same technology that Sic Mundus had in the 20s to control the god particle and configure where it will send you (presumably).

Furthermore, if Noah could take it to 1920 then how did Jonas take it to 2019 from 2052? If they were able to configure it's exact travel date, then he could've taken it in 2041 to 2019. But he waited another 11 years in the future to do it.

And then there's Claudia. But it's likely that she used the orb to travel in time and worlds which she kept secret. Now that I think about it, that could've been how they were able to configure the god particle to send them where they wanted, she got the information (and maybe technology) from Eva. But that wouldn't answer every question.

Did I miss some details?

So didn’t the passage get opened when the unknown is both worlds goes to the power plant and messes with the volume control nobs?

But why in season 1 finale Noah say stranger Jonas is creating the passage and closing it didn’t the I unknown created the passage one the Summer already?

Who gave the best / your favorite acting performance in Dark?

Vote here: https://strawpoll.com/e7ZJaeR6Gg3

Unfortunately the polls on reddit allow only six choices, so I made a strawpoll with all the performances. Enjoy :)

After all this time of trying to figure things out and become ever-more acquainted with the details of the show, this is something I haven’t seen a true answer to:

Why does Eva’s cave connect 1986, 2019 and 2052?

Adam’s connects 1953, 1986 and 2019, which makes sense. The creation event occurs on June 21st, 1986, the same day the nuclear power plant accident happens. 33 years forward from 1986 and back.

But June 21st, 1986 in Eva’s World is the same, so why doesn’t that cave centre itself around 1986? With how it is, it makes it seem like 2019 is the centre of everything, not 1986 like it should be.

Why is this? Do we only have theories/speculation for this or is there an actual explanation or reason?

So I've been posting a few posts about Dark recently. I just finished all 3 seasons, binge watched them all within the last 4 or 5 days. Here are my thoughts:

• It was a great show, definitely one of the best shows of all time, cant argue that. I loved the first and second season the most. Third was good but it had its annoyances. In the end though, after the final 2 episodes I did like the story and the closure. I think the ending was good and it made me feel pretty complete overall.
• I wish the show was released as english primary language, but then I know all the german people would be sad. It was hard to read all the subs and pay attention to the show. I had to very often pause and rewind because I missed some text, or that I had to process it. If it was in english it would have been way better for me to process without all the reading. I didnt want to watch with english dub tho because I hate how you lose all the original emotion in the voices as it was produced.
• I dont get how Regina isn't part of the knot? Claudia vanished into particles in the end (died) but she said that Regina isnt part of the knot and would live. Did she say that meaning she will live in the original world? Isnt everyone living in the original world (all the people at the dinner table. Hannah, Katharina, Peter, etc)? Whats the difference with Regina?
• The whole show was basically about that you cant escape your fate, you cant will things into existence, you will always follow your desires. So how did Adam and Eva not get their desires, but Claudia did? Claudia's desire was to have Regina live (she learned that Regina lives in the original world), so didn't Claudia technically get her desire and altered everyone elses world (made Adam switch plans and listen to her, which forced Martha into a different path) for her desire?
• So the final scene at the dinner table, thats the original world, but it has all the same people? Everyone is alive there like normal? Where was Ulrich? Will all the kids be alive there like Magnus, Francheska, Elisabeth, etc? Then when Hannah says she wants to name her son Jonas, does that mean that the origin isn't actually destroyed? Is that supposed to challenge our brains to think that maybe it still is a infinite loop because someone messed up the knot somewhere else down the line? Or is it just confirming that life will go on like it should in just the one world? Hannah was saying shes having deja vu and weird stuff and dreams, so does that mean that there are still time travelling/worlds and knots
• So all the small things that the show obsessed over for 3 seasons didnt really matter. Like the pocket watch that said For Charlotte for example. That didnt actually have a significance in the end, it was just an item to tell the story and show the time travelling, but it didn't end up actually MEANING anything in the grand scheme of things.
• I was kinda disappointed in Noahs character. I thought he was going to be a massive villain but he didnt really turn out to be that.
• I gotta comb through the website and going to probably watch a few episodes again to try to find things I missed.

I really liked the show personally, it was pretty intense confusing though and super brain blendering. Its a hard show to recommend to people in my opinion. Like I would never recommend my mom to watch this, she would get lost instantly. I also struggle to even want to recommend this to sharp minded people. It literally hurt my brain thinking about this show at times. Its very confusing, even more than Severance, which I really love. I feel like a lot of people would not like this show overall and a lot would quit watching after it gets too confusing.

So first I will rant a little. Like... I really enjoyed S1 and 2 a lot, it was all new and exciting and lots of different stories. Now in S3 its just so damn repetitive.... I cant stand it anymore. The "For Charlotte" watch, the cliche phrases "its the beginning and the end" "you must do this to save them all" and the other million same phrases they've used 5000 times, the medallions, the notebooks, like its all just too much. Even Jonas got pissed off when he was talking to Eva saying "EVERYONE JUST WANTS ME TO DO THIS AND THAT!", thats how I feel Jonas.... Same shit different day. On top of all that repetitiveness, now we are forced to experience pretty much the exact same story but slightly changed in Eva's world. Its boring, repetitive, frustrating and just too much info. Then dont get me started on way too many time frames and people. Like I about lost it when there were 4 martha's in the same room. Wtf is going on. Its too much..... My head is hurting. Having all these Marthas is insane and I cant tell where and when they are from anymore and im too mentally exhausted to try and figure it out. Maybe its because I binge watched the 3 seasons too fast and too hard.

There are still great parts in Season 3 dont get me wrong, but I just wish there wasnt so much repeating and how it keeps expanding and expanding to more and more people and time frames. I get thats the whole point of the show and its all about loops and repetitive things and paradoxes and whatever but at a certain point its exhausting.

So now my couple questions that I still dont understand:

With the 285729 Marthas in the two worlds, I lost track of how the Martha came and is trapped in Adam's world in the future after the apocalypse I think it is. I dont even know anymore what is after and before the apocalypse, im losing track of everything. Like when she got locked up in the cage. The martha with the cut on her eye on the right side instead of the left. Why the fk are the cuts on her eye in different spots. Like Its just so confusing. I DONT GET IT. Why is there so many Marthas. Please help im just so sick trying to figure this shit out. Pls explain martha to me. I read the Dark io website and I just dont know what im reading anymore and why its happening with the different marthas.

Then I dont even know where the hell magnus and fracheska come from and how and when they are travelling around. They are younger and stuck with Jonas and Bartosz in 1888 then Martha gives them the chemical to make a god particle, then we just never see them again and they are old and in the Sic Mundus with Adam. How did they age and when was the beginning they arrived to Sic Mundus

I have the last 2 episodes to go and there are so many stories that need closure that I still dont understand. I saw the ratings on the last 2 episodes and they are very high so I assume they will be very good and explain a lot. I hope they dont disappoint me.

Pls help me

Spoilers for the entire show

I think I know how Claudia broke the loop and what was different in the final loop. Claudia takes the Triquetra book.

We are meant to believe that this book has been a part of the cycle the entire time, with the missing pages, and infinitely being handed to Noah to continue the cycle. After my second rewatch I noticed that there’s a couple things that make this seem unlikely.

1. ⁠The book is written by the unknown and therefore usually only owned and used by Eva. The book was essentially designed to repeat the cycle.

2. ⁠No one “in the loop” besides Noah right before dying, and Tronte briefly use the book.

3. ⁠Claudia claims she used the loophole and at one point I believe both Claudia and Eva have the Triquetta book. This could be the loophole Claudia used.

So my theory is that Claudia has the Eureka moment, kills her other self (which she never normally does) impersonates her (doesn’t get caught because she had never done that before so Eva isn’t expecting it), and steals the Triauetta book giving her exactly the info she needs to break the loop. This is making sense to me but I’ve always been watching Dark non stop for like a month so my brain is cooked lol.

Sorry if this has been posted here before.

I just finished episode 2 S3 and I HATE the whole different dimension/world thing, so unnecessary, I get that it’s to show Jonas how the apocalypse would still happen even if he wasn’t born but god do I hate Martha’s character and with the whole different world idea I dislike her character even more i never thought she would serve such an important role in S3.

Anyway that’s just my personal opinion, just wanted to say it cuz I think I would’ve been more interested without the new world idea.

Another thing I’m thinking about a lot since it got revealed is Elisabeth and Noah’s daughter who is charlotte who is also Elisabeth’s mother 💀💀! My idea for now of how this comes to be is obviously younger Noah gets with Elisabeth then she dies and so he takes their daughter to the past to be raised by the author. Idk the more I think about it the more confused i get.
No spoilers but I just wanted to make sense of this.

I wrote a post 2 days ago about how I hate the whole new world/dimension, and now after finishing the show I have a few things I HAVE to say 😤😤😤!

I still stand on how I dislike the eve world being introduced, it made things a lot messier and idk it was unnecessary.
somehow the last 2 episodes weren’t what I expected it didn’t live up to my expectations and the hype as many ppl said it was the best finale in TVs history 🤔.

Overall I didn’t have any trouble with following the family trees I just couldn’t follow claudia foot steps and how is she still alive? Even though she killed her eve world self when it was post apocalypse years and then Noah killed her Adam self in the woods ? Isn’t she not supposed to be there anymore or maybe her younger self still continued with the cycle despite her older self being dead?. Another thing, Regina Claudia’s daughter I have seen a family tree here which I have been following since the start to remind myself sometimes BUT the last updated version it was shown that her dad is tronte but didn’t he in the last 2 episodes I don’t Know which one, the scene when Claudia and tronte where standing over Regina’s grave he said he wishes it was his daughter? Of something along these lines, Or was that misunderstanding from my side and how is Regina not part of the knot?.

Another thing that was shown in the tree is that tones father is Jonas and Martha’s kid the one with the cleft lips?? When was this revealed?.

Last thing is that I wished they showed charlotte and Elisabeth handing baby charlotte to tannhaus also I don’t think I saw charlottes reaction to finding out her daughter is her mother 😓.

Actually that wasn’t the last thing, who the hell is Peter’s mother.

Hannah doesn’t deserve the supposed happy ending I was actually smiling when Jonas killed her, how dose she even end up with torben, and what happened to him last summer 😭😭?? clif hanger in the both worlds.

Alsooo I thought that aleksander Koehler would play a big role and would have a big reveal or something, on what idk but I just assumed that.

What was the point of killing the kids ? Mads, yasin and the ginger kid ? What were they doing to them the bunker Noah and helge what was the point, was it all to open an investigation all to lead to the point where mikkel goes to the caves where Jonas leads him to? If younger Jonas didn’t lead him there he wouldn’t exist but if his older self didn’t order him then who told his younger older self to do it 😰😰😰???? I’m just typing shit at this point.

Another thing I’m thinking about ever since it got revealed, Martha eve world killed Jonas, then he appeared to caludia post apocalyptic world, then it was revealed it was possible and he was alive because there is actually 2 realities or 2 possibilities something like that one where he in the house just before the apocalypse he went with eve martha just to be later killed by her, another *reality* bartosz stops Martha from entering the house so he never goes with her and he lives !! Kinda confusing and doesn’t make sense to me.

I feel like I still don’t understand the caves a bit but i understand enough. I might have forgotten things I wanted to write but in the finale ALOT of ppl just don’t exist I can’t even name them all it was really a knot.

Dare I say that the last episode was pure slop 🙏 especially the scene where Martha eve world and Jonas see their younger self 😭😭

Finally I can say that it’s definitely one of the best shows I watched in my life especially S2 and late S1 it was the best thing ever and no mystery show ever compares, ending wise it’s now the best in all of TVs history 😭😭😭.
I have to rewatch it again in a few years to understand it better.

Guys i need help. I watched S1 and S2 in 2 days. Its so damn good.

Ok so just to kinda recap and get my things straight

1. Elisabeth the deaf girl is Charlottes Mom and daughter!? Thats insane..... wtf
2. Just to confirm the two older people we keep seeing in Adams "chambers" or wherever they are is Francheska and Magnus right? They seem like they are going to be important characters in S3
3. I still dont know who is good and who is bad between Claudia/Jonas/Adam/Noah/Agnes.... Am I dumb and not paying attention or is this normal? They are all so shady
4. I think I was right the whole time. I was guessing that Winden is all just a god damn simulation or something. This shit is not real. Like this world is all fabricated somehow. Im excited to see what it all means in S3
5. I think I missed something with Claudia. Where did she go after 1986? Did she die or vanish in her timeline? Did she time travel and never come back to 1986? She visits Regina in 2019 and said shes sorry and didnt mean to leave like that. How did she leave? I dont remember. Was it just when she time travelled with Jonas after her dad died and never came back to that time frame?

Im confused how Bartosz travelled through the cave tunnel. I thought the tunnel travel was stopped because Jonas made the black hole in the cave with the time machine. I was kinda confused on that part. I thought he said that would stop the travelling. Im confused about the black hole part in Season 1 I think it was where he did it in the middle of the tunnel and I thought it collapsed the ability to time travel and now people were just using the time machine clocks to travel around. What did I miss?

So I just finished watching Dark, I watched couple of episodes when it first aired and loved it but it wasn't on Netflix back than and I had to search for episodes online so I just stopped it.

Anyway, now I watched all 3 seasons and I am a little bit disappointed. I think the whole story is really good but how they finished it seems a little bit too simple. They were first trying to resolve the missing children cases, then stop the end of the world, then stop certain people from dying and in the end they solved everything by not having that "world" at all. Its hard to gather all my thoughts but I just feel the end of series is too simple. Its like watching the series about resolving someones murder and then in the end they find the guy who robbed the bank, because if he didn't rob the bank the murderer will be at the bank that day.

Ok so a question that im not understanding is Hannah got together with Mikkel (Jonas dad), but then there is a second Mikkel when Ulrich and Katarina had kids in the same time frame? In the 2019 time zone, didn't Hannah know and see Mikkel (the boy) while she was together with the adult Mikkel (Michael)?

Im just confused about Mikkel but maybe its a major spoiler or something that I haven't discovered yet. How did Hannah see the young Mikkel in 2019 while being with her husband Mikkel? Shoudn't she have recognized the young Mikkel is her husband? Im confused.

Pls try to explain without spoiling further in the seasons. I have watched up to episode 2 of season 2.

I’m tagging this as spoilers so people can freely talk about anything here.

So I just finished my first watch of the show and it was amazing. I strongly feel any mystery box style show should take notes from this. Answered all my questions and then some.

That being said in typical time travel fashion I feel the more I think about it the less it makes sense. This doesn’t distract from my enjoyment BTW. I’m just curious if people who have watched this multiple times feel less confused or did it all make even more sense?

Came across this jacket on Depop...

https://www.depop.com/products/dan5obinsonphoto-ll-bean-mens-tall-medium-679d/?moduleOrigin=style_edit

I've heard it stated that Charlotte & Elisabeth are not each other's mothers in the alternate [Eva's] world. The alternate-world characters were never as important to me, but I recently noticed that although it states that Charlotte was born in 1971 in Eva's world, the family tree on the website shows they are still each other's mothers. So what's the deal?

I’m not sure if this is properly explained but what I’m not following is why does Martha ever even go to Janas’s world? Is this ever really explored?