Make me forget my degree in quantum physics I beg you, because now all I can hear is bulls...

Would you be ok to summarize what quantum physic actually is in real life? It’s used a lot in fiction to explain weird sf shenanigans but I could never really understand what it’s supposed to be

Removing all the philosophical parts, it's a way to see the world from a different physical point of view, meaning that instead of using classical Newton physics you can rewrite all the formulas in a new way, usually starting from the Shroedinger's equation. In university what we are taught is way less philosophical and way more practical (lots of algebra, integrals etc...)

For example quantum physics is useful to predict the movements of things extremely small, like electrons, so both in chemistry and in (micro)electronics at a certain point you will have to use quantum formulas.

The concept in movies and books that "if you don't look at it, everything is possible" is kind of true, in a mathematical complicated way that is a bit difficult to explain. Basically when you make measurements on these extremely small particles, you can only measure 1 thing at a time (or more things, but they need to be compatible), so you can only know the position of an electron for example, but not the speed. So we say that the speed could simultaneously be more values at the same time. Then we measure the speed and suddenly the position becomes the problem. It's called Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

So in a very microscopic way, if we want to look at the philosophical part that comics and literature like to always mention, there are more futures overlapped in a single moment until you measure it ("you look at it").
For example quantum computers are way more powerful than normal computers (in theory) because until you measure their bits, they could be both 0 and 1, so multiple futures at the same time!

BUT it's a stretch to talk about parallel futures or different dimensions. Those can be very high level interpretations with very little ground of truth.

Everything else you see in movies is just speculation, but not much scientific. Truly, it's just a way to rewrite physics so that it can be applied to more complex scenarios than the traditional ones.

Oh I see, I think I understand it a bit better thank you! That was super interesting :O I suppose that’s also used for space and time travel theories (like the general relativity theories of Hawking etc)