I also enjoyed the book immensely and would commend it to anyone interested in the foundations of QM. Everett called his theory ‘relative state’ though he did not object to others calling it ‘many worlds’. In E’s theory there is one world, the wave function. We macroscopic beings are in a ‘slice’ of that world.
E’s theory solves a lot of problems: derives the Born probability rule and removes the need to postulate it, explains Schrodinger’s cat and Wigner’s friend, fits perfectly with decoherence, allows partial measurements, removes the need to postulate a classical measurement apparatus, works with relarivistic QFT and QCD, has no spooky action at a distance, is deterministic at a fundamental level, and has no ill defined ‘collapse’. Not bad.
The price is to give away the intuition that ‘this’ version of me is the only ‘real’ one. Just as we gave away the intuition that the earth is not moving post Copernicus.
The sociology is also interesting - Bohr was totally dominant and crushed the Everett heresy. John Wheeler, Everett’s supervisor, was utterly cowed by Bohr.
Edit: original thesis not thesis. There were two versions, a longer version with more proofs and detail and a shorter version ordered by Bohr which is sadly truncated and watered down.
This is one of those “unask that question grasshopper!” situations.
There is according to Everett, just one world, consisting of the wave function.
As macroscopic beings we experience a projection of that wave function onto a lower dimensional space. One can think of one projection as one ‘world’ but really there is just one world. You have to read the whole thing unfortunately to really see it.
As quantum measurements occur the projections ‘split’. This creates the illusion of indeterminacy because we only see part of the world.
I also enjoyed the book immensely and would commend it to anyone interested in the foundations of QM. Everett called his theory ‘relative state’ though he did not object to others calling it ‘many worlds’. In E’s theory there is one world, the wave function. We macroscopic beings are in a ‘slice’ of that world.
E’s theory solves a lot of problems: derives the Born probability rule and removes the need to postulate it, explains Schrodinger’s cat and Wigner’s friend, fits perfectly with decoherence, allows partial measurements, removes the need to postulate a classical measurement apparatus, works with relarivistic QFT and QCD, has no spooky action at a distance, is deterministic at a fundamental level, and has no ill defined ‘collapse’. Not bad.
The price is to give away the intuition that ‘this’ version of me is the only ‘real’ one. Just as we gave away the intuition that the earth is not moving post Copernicus.
The sociology is also interesting - Bohr was totally dominant and crushed the Everett heresy. John Wheeler, Everett’s supervisor, was utterly cowed by Bohr.
Everett’s model does not even explain simple state transitions. let alone anything more interesting, like radioactive decay.
Having read his thesis I think it does. Why not?
Edit: original thesis not thesis. There were two versions, a longer version with more proofs and detail and a shorter version ordered by Bohr which is sadly truncated and watered down.
How many worlds are created when an atom emits a photon when going from an excited state to the ground state?
I suspect you have not read his thesis.
The number of worlds is really measure not count.
The issue is not whether the number of worlds in finite or infinite, but when the worlds come into existence. When do you think it happens?
This is one of those “unask that question grasshopper!” situations.
There is according to Everett, just one world, consisting of the wave function.
As macroscopic beings we experience a projection of that wave function onto a lower dimensional space. One can think of one projection as one ‘world’ but really there is just one world. You have to read the whole thing unfortunately to really see it.
As quantum measurements occur the projections ‘split’. This creates the illusion of indeterminacy because we only see part of the world.