Rick’s car battery…

…and Recursion.

At first, it sounded ridiculous, but the more I thought about it, the more the comparison made sense.

If you’ve never seen the episode, here’s the basic idea.

Rick’s spaceship / car is powered by a battery.

Nothing unusual, right?

Until Morty discovers that the battery isn’t really a battery at all. Inside it is an entire miniature universe. The civilization inside that universe has unknowingly built their entire society around generating electricity. Every person, every machine, every city exists to produce power, and most of that energy is secretly harvested by Rick to run his car.

Naturally, the scientist living in that tiny universe eventually asks the same question Morty did:

“Where does our energy come from?”

Instead of accepting the answer, he creates…

another universe.

Inside that universe lives another civilization that unknowingly powers his own.

And then you suddenly realize what’s happening.

A universe inside a universe inside another universe…

each one depending on the one below it.

When I first watched the episode years ago, I just thought it was another absurd Rick and Morty joke.

This time, something clicked.

“This is literally recursion.”

Thinking Like a Programmer

When we first learn recursion, we’re usually shown something like factorials or Fibonacci numbers.

factorial(5)
 ↓
factorial(4)
 ↓
factorial(3)
 ↓
factorial(2)
 ↓
factorial(1)

Every function depends on a smaller version of the same problem.

None of them can finish until the smaller one finishes.

Exactly like Rick’s universes.

Rick's Car
    ↓
Battery Universe
    ↓
Mini Universe
    ↓
Tiny Universe
    ↓
Base Universe

Rick’s universe depends on the energy produced by the universe inside his battery.

That universe depends on the universe inside its battery.

That universe depends on another one.

Each level says,

“I can’t fully solve my problem until the smaller world beneath me does its job.”

That’s recursion.

But Then I Thought About the Base Case

Here’s where the analogy became even more interesting.

Every recursive function needs something called a base case.

Without it, the function keeps calling itself forever.

void recurse() {
    recurse();
}

This never stops.

Eventually…

Stack Overflow.

The same thing would happen in Rick’s chain of universes.

Imagine every civilization keeps creating another universe forever.

Universe A creates Universe B.

Universe B creates Universe C.

Universe C creates Universe D.

And so on…

If this never ends, no universe is actually producing usable energy on its own.

Everyone is waiting for the next universe to solve the problem.

It’s recursion without a base case.

Infinite recursion.

So What Would the Base Case Look Like?

This is where my imagination started running.

Suppose, somewhere very deep down the chain, one civilization decides:

“We’re not going to create another universe.”

Instead, they figure out a stable way to generate power themselves.

Or maybe they simply agree:

“We’ll dedicate 80% of our energy to powering the universe above us.”

At that moment, the chain stops growing.

There’s finally a lowest level.

The recursion has reached its base case.

Now something beautiful happens.

The lowest universe starts supplying energy.

The universe above it now has the power it was waiting for.

Then the next one.

Then the next one.

Eventually the energy reaches Rick’s battery.

This is exactly how recursive functions return.

The Return Phase

People often focus on recursive calls.

I think the real magic happens afterward.

Take factorial as an example.

factorial(5)

calls

factorial(4)

which calls

factorial(3)

which calls

factorial(2)

which calls

factorial(1)

Finally we reach the base case.

Now the recursion starts returning.

factorial(1) = 1

factorial(2) = 2 × 1

factorial(3) = 3 × 2

factorial(4) = 4 × 6

factorial(5) = 5 × 24

Notice something.

The answer wasn’t available at the beginning.

Every level had to wait for the smaller level to finish first.

That’s exactly what happens in the battery analogy.

Each universe is waiting for the one beneath it.

Once the deepest universe has something real to provide, every higher universe can finally “return” its own result.

The energy flows upward just like return values flow back through the recursive call stack.

Where the Analogy Isn’t Perfect

Like every analogy, this one has limits.

In a recursive program, the recursive calls are usually made by a single function executing on one computer.

Rick’s universes are independent civilizations.

Energy isn’t literally a function return value.

And the universes don’t actually disappear after finishing like stack frames do.

But the dependency structure feels remarkably similar.

Each level delegates work to a smaller version of itself.

Each waits for the lower level.

Everything only works because there’s eventually a stopping point.

Without that stopping point, the whole system collapses.

Why This Episode Stuck With Me

One of the best parts about computer science is that once you start learning it, you begin seeing algorithms everywhere.

A family tree suddenly looks like a recursive data structure.

Russian nesting dolls look like nested objects.

A folder inside another folder inside another folder feels like recursion.

And apparently…

Rick Sanchez’s car battery does too.

I don’t know if the writers intended this comparison.

Maybe they didn’t.

But that’s what I love about programming.

Once you understand a concept deeply enough, you stop seeing it only in code.

You start seeing it in stories, movies, games, and even ridiculous sci-fi universes.

And now I don’t think I’ll ever watch “The Ricks Must Be Crazy” without thinking about recursion and the moment when the deepest universe finally becomes the base case that lets every other universe “return” all the way back to Rick’s car.

Tell me

Have you ever understood a programming concept because of a movie, TV show, or game? I’d love to hear your favorite analogy in the comments.