Many worlds Definition and 131 Threads

Just a question: how would the wavefunction "collapse" in a time-reversed universe? Let's take Alice. If she's taking a backward time travel to -say- 2021 and finds herself in 2021, wouldn't that be a (prohibited) quantum cloning of an already measured quantum state? Say, the |Alice 2021⟩ ket is...

Among the most well-known interpretations of Quantum Mechanics is that of the "Many Worlds," in which all possible outcomes of a measured quantum event occur simultaneously in some alternative universe. Now, I realize there is some manner of debate as to whether or not the different...

I've been researching the MWI, and just when I thought I was starting to get it, I got confused again. There aren't many worlds; there's one in superposition? What's the difference? When do worlds(?) split? Will someone please explain the theory in a simple way, but not so simplistically I might...

Let's pay a visit to one of Schrodinger's cats. In the classical statement of the case, we have to decide if the cat is alive or dead when the probability of the radio-active decay mechanism has a 50/50 chance of releasing the cyanide, most often posed as 60 minutes. If I understand the MW...

I am writing a blog about physics and one of the sections is about the different interpretations of quantum mechanics and some of its supporters. I was wondering what was the opinion of the physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed towards the Many Worlds interpretation... I ask this because I found...

I was wondering what was the opinion of the physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed towards the Many Worlds interpretation. Is he open to the possibility of it being true? Does he support it?

Before anything, I would like to clarify that I am aware that this is speculative physics more than established mainstream physics (and Smoot is not claiming that his ideas are true). However I think that it is interesting to discuss these models even if they are not yet proven to be right. I...

I can't find the anwer on this anywhere, so I hope I may ask it here. My question: In a standard double slit experiment, according to the Many Worlds Interpretation, does the photon create different worlds with different impact locations of the photon? So, without measuring which way...

This question is not intended to invoke arguments about whether Hugh Everett's theory, now referred to as the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, is feasible or not. When I heard David Wallace say that Many Worlds does away with the so-called 'spooky action at a distance' referred...

https://mateusaraujo.info/2021/12/08/a-satisfactory-derivation-of-borns-rule/

If we have binary decoherence at spacetime location X, as far as I understand, we almost instantly have a splitting into two worlds. Now if we have a different location Y, about a lightyear apart from X, then the decoherence hasn't reached Y before a year has passed. So for Y, the split hasn't...

David Deutsch is a well known proponent of the Many Worlds Interpretation. His argument seems to be that a single photon in the double slit experiment must be interfering with one from another world. It is commonly held by physicists that the the photon, as a wave going through double slits, can...

Despite its lackluster reception at its conception by Hugh Everett and subsequent advocacy by Bryce S. DeWitt the concept of "just take the theory seriously" and intriguing science-fiction concept of parallel worlds eventually gave it a major resurgence, much thanks to David Deutsch's pioneering...

In many words a split occurs when a quantum measurement occurs, this split would then 'radiate' out into the universe. So say a quantum measurement of an electron happens on the moon. The information from the measurement would travel to let's say some people. These people would then unknowingly...

Travis Norsen in his paper Quantum Solipsism and Non-Locality seems to believe that Everettian QM implies some sort of solipsism. He falls it FAPP (for all present purposes) solipsism. (I must say that as a geologist this goes over my head a bit!) However I have recently read Sean Carrolls...

Should particles in superposition before quantum decoherence (many worlds) be envisioned in the same exact way as they are envisioned before wave function collapse (Copenhagen)? Clearly, the particle in Many Worlds is in a sort of superposition, but with all of the talk about one universal wave...

Hi everyone, I was having a conversation with my friend about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and we couldn't figure out if many worlds implied every single last possible conceivable outcome, or if there were certain limitations that the system was confined to. For...

So the many worlds interpretation describes every quantum events as a branch point, where in which all events happen. I'll use the example of a coin toss to illustrate my question. If I flip a coin, I create a branch point in my universe from which two universes emerge, where both heads and...

In this article [1] we can read an explanation about Wilson's approach to renormalization I have read that Kenneth G Wilson favoured the path integral/many histories interpretation of Feynman in quantum mechanics to explain it. I was wondering if he did also consider that multiple worlds...

The interpretations have very different ontological implications. In one, the branches of a wavefunction are real. In the other, the branches are not. These differences are substantive and not trivial. They lead to very different objections being levied against each interpretation. E.g...

The two volume treatise Bryce DeWitt, The global approach to quantum field theory, Oxford Univ. Press 2003. which discusses the canonical approach to dynamical quantum gravity, is probably responsible for the fact that the many worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics has a sizable...

Is a sparse many worlds representation possible? Or in other words, is it compatible that existence is informationally compact, in that branching is not global? As a crude example, take two worlds, one where I had coffee and one where I had tea; would it be possible that those two versions of me...

Sean Carroll's most recent book is called Something Deeply Hidden, and is premissed on the idea that the Everett interpretation of the 'observer problem' in quantum physics is correct. Carroll, and several other prominent scientific popularisers including David Deutsche and Max Tegmark, are...

I'm at this point because a whole bunch of audio books I've been indulging in all seem to be converging on Many Worlds, and this has been given extra authority now because Sean Carroll appears to be a convert. I used to wonder if this was actual physics or metaphysics, and I've given up asking...

Entanglement's non-locality ('spooky action at a distance') depends on the instantaneous collapse at all points in space of the entangled particles' common wave function. The Many Worlds model has no wave function collapse. Does it also have no entanglement?

And also an answer to 'where are the future time travellers?'. Let's say hypothetically that in the future time travel into the past is invented. To me many worlds looks like metaphysics, but it appears to be taken seriously by physicists, therefore, what if after traveling backwards in time as...

Schrodinger’s Cat and the many worlds interpretation states that the wave function collapse doesn’t happen at all; every possible outcome of an observation actually comes to pass in its own separate universe. We are presented with a binary (discrete) outcome (dead or alive) but what if there...

There seems to be as many branches of Everettian QM as there are branches in Everettian QM. One of the things that never seem to be clarified by anyone is whether MWI is really just Modalism or not. I.E. whether *all worlds* happen *all the time*, or if there are specific conditions necessary. I...

I get so many different answers to this question so maybe here someone can pin this down. When I get up in the morning and I turn on my TV, I have over 3,000 channels so is there a universe with a version of me going to each channel? If not, how do I go to one channel over the other? Can my...

Summary: How does many worlds deal with the measurement of an electron's position in space? Hi all - I am reading Sean Carroll's book on quantum mechanics and reached the end of the section on "branching and splitting" without getting an answer. I will lay out my assumptions and then get to...

According to Everett-interpretation or many world interpretation of quantum mechanics, each decision an observer makes, the world splits into two parallel universes, let’s say an observer in some point in Spacetime is tests the Schrödinger’s cat experiment, in one branch of the universe the cat...

If MWI and collapse-theory are both possible interpretations of QM, then both of them are not a fact, right? If MWI is a fact then collapse isn't and vice versa, you could say the least. So, shut up and calculate, i.e. the minimal interpretation, makes no inference about the realness of these...

Interpretation of quantum mechanics is something that is discussed at length on pf so it would be interesting to get views of the quantum guys on this short (30 mins) podcast. Thanks...

I'm trying to understand the comment by bhobba below from another thread. A related followup from RUTA is provided for reference. After reviewing these I still don't understand. If I think in terms of a single-world (not Everette) and assume Alice and Bob are free to adjust their SG...

Can anyone elaborate on Deutsch's attempt to solve the incoherence problem? He postulates a continuously infinite set of universes, together with a preferred measure on that set. And so when a measurement occurs, the proportion of universes in the original branch that end up on a given branch...

Hi, Is anybody able to explain how energy is "distributed" in the many-worlds interpretation. I'm using scare quotes as I think this may be the wrong line of thought. It's tempting to imagine energy being distributed amongst subsequent branches as the wave function evolves but I'm not certain...

In QED the maths suggests that a photon takes all possible paths, and all but one of the paths cancel out leaving the path we observe. Using this as an analogy:- The maths of quantum mechanics suggests a vast number of possible universes concurrent with our universe. Perhaps all these...

Given an ideal "box" as used by Schrodinger; - have a quantum event occur inside it, e.g. sudden cat death with 50% probability. - have a machine in it that sends out a qubit, fully entangled with the box' internal state, at regular intervals. - the qubit is a polarised photon - outside, use a...

Is it possible to modify the original quantum suicide experiment in a way in which rather than dying you are put to sleep for someone to distinguish between many worlds and Copenhagen interpretations?

Every derivation from the MWI of the born rule is circular. http://fmoldove.blogspot.com/search?q=MWI So my question is, can the MWI state the born rule as a postulate (without deriving) and still be a coherent interpretation of probability? The most famous argument against this notion is by...

All the literature on the quantum eraser that I've seen is grounded in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. It's very easy to understand the experiment in those terms. Do you know how quantum eraser experiments are interpreted by the de Broglie–Bohm theory? What is erased in this...

Hi, sorry - forgive me for posting (I am not much of a science guy but I am still interested). I am just watching a documentary (I know not a great source for scientific information - but it got me thinking). In the documentary it talks about the many worlds theory (which I believe is different...

Supposing the Many Worlds interpretation of QM is true... If a branching occurs during what we perceive is a wave function collapse, why would this be perceptible to us as probabilties? Wouldn't we just branch, leaving it just as imperceviable as the passage of time? That is, it just happens...

Greg Bernhardt submitted a new PF Insights post The Fundamental Difference in Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

I've been looking at one of Max Tegmark's articles about his 'Mathematical Universe' hypothesis, here on arXiv. As a preliminary, note that Tegmark's framework has four 'levels' of multiverses, with each level being an infinite collection of multiverses at the level below it. The second or...

Hi! Sorry for my bad English! I don't know much of physics, I know some experiments that show that relativity is real, quantum entanglement, particle and wave duality and so on... So, the only theory that explain all of it mathematically is M theory and the strings, but we can never test it to...

I have a few questions about the Many Worlds Interpretation. I read the article https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/ but was having trouble understanding what the "measure of existence" is supposed to represent in the theory, and why a believer in the idea should adhere to either...

I didn't know where to put this, but sci-fi seemed fitting: Just a hypothetical regarding the Butterfly Effect that's been puzzling me, if anyone has any insight... How much could you do in the past before your very presence started affecting history? For fun, let’s say you wake up 12 years...

If I understand the many worlds QM interpretation correctly, for every quantum event the universe divides. However not all quantum events have a 50/50 probability. How does the many worlds interpretation deal with quantum events that have,say a 1/3 2/3 probability split?

A question came up to my mind while thinking about probabilities and Born rule in the context of the Everettian approach. It is often said that anomalies/maverick branches where the experiments go horribly wrong and crazy stuff happens have a negligible amplitude/measure so they really don't...