Weddings at Life Is Beautiful Aren’t What You Think

Jonathon Keats is making science sexy with nuptial entanglements. The experimental philosopher has worked on lots of off-the-cuff projects, such as a photosynthetic restaurant and a porn theater for plants (look it up). Now, he’s bringing atypical espousals to the Life Is Beautiful Art Motel that ditch the priest and paperwork and focus only on the physics.

The process relies on the principle that once people are bombarded with enough entangled photons, some of the electrons in their bodies will also become entangled. These electrons will act in the exact same way, no matter how far apart.

In other words, science.

“To me, it’s incredibly romantic that you cannot be bound by some sort of law that’s been mandated by political or religious authority, but by a law of nature,” says Keats. “That law of nature stipulates that you and your partner are one and the same, even if you are worlds apart from each other.”

The process is completely free and comes with few rules and minimal supervision. Everyone becoming entangled will pass through a mirrored curtain and enter a room filled with crystals and mirrors (“You will certainly get a pretty spectacular visual experience,” promises Keats). Sunlight will pass through the crystals with entangled photons and reflect off the mirrors and onto people’s skin. The longer people stay in the room, the more entangled their electrons will become.

Keats, who is entangled with his wife, has performed hundreds of these weddings since their beginning in 2011.

Why do you do these weddings?
There are many things that interest me in this project—one of which is to provide a genuine experience that is an alternative to marriage. I’m also interested in bringing people into a position to question marriage as an institution, to question the validity, legitimacy and importance of it.

I’m also attempting to make people aware about principles they take for granted, in terms of the technology they use and principles that scientists take for granted, such as the work happening in physics today.

Why are you bringing these weddings to Life Is Beautiful, specifically?
While they have been in New York and Berlin, Las Vegas seems to be the place where it belongs as a permanent institution. It’s the wedding capital of the world and is where some of the most innovative forms of marriage have been attempted, such as Elvis-officiated weddings and drive-through weddings. It’s also the only place in the world where people deliberately go to get married, and could become a destination for entanglement as well.

Life Is Beautiful is really a pilot for what will become a quantum nuptial suite in one of the major hotels in Las Vegas. For people that can’t go, there are other opportunities: I’m entangling wedding bands, for example, or bubble baths and champagne, so people can have the entanglement experience even if they can’t get to Las Vegas.

How long does the process take?
It takes as long as you wish to invest; the longer you spend, the more you and your partner will become entangled. A couple of seconds should be enough to have some amount of entanglement take place, but if you want to lounge around for five or 10 minutes, that would be a better experience.

Do you ever come across people that are skeptical of the process?
Of course.

What do you tell them?
It depends on what level of skepticism we’re talking about. The processes I’m using would not be advisable for a controlled experiment, but if you’re trying to entangle people, they are perfectly reasonable.

For example, I’m using laboratory processes, such as a lab-grown nonlinear crystal that will entangle photons. However, I’m not using a laser beam; I’m using sunlight, which is far less efficient as a light source. The sun is simply a good place to go, however, because it’s cheap, won’t blind anybody and is a lot more romantic, frankly speaking.

As far as whether people doubt it at a more philosophical level, that gets much more interesting. The idea that is fundamental to quantum entanglement—that two or more particles can be entangled or can have the property of one another (despite the fact that they are separated)—is so entirely counterintuitive, it certainly engenders a level of skepticism.

I read that you can also get entangled with objects. Have you performed any of those marriages before?
Sure. There was one man who got entangled with himself (he was a philosopher, of course). People have talked about getting entangled with pets, even favorite gadgets, but nobody has yet done so. I think it’s interesting that they haven’t, because it shows that people do take the proposition seriously and weigh the consequences. There are second thoughts about, “Do I really want to be so flippant in this process to be entangled with my pet poodle?”

Is there a way to get de-entangled?
If you were to doubt that you were entangled with your partner or partners, you would become disentangled and destroy what you had. That’s romantic to me, because it’s the essence of a relationship.

Jonathon Keats will be performing nuptial entanglements at Life Is Beautiful’s Art Motel.

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