Danger for the Many-Worlds Interpretation?

In summary: If we think of the universe as a giant die, then the analogy breaks down.In summary, Sabine Hossenfelder claims that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is equivalent to the measurement postulate, which requires the collapse of the wave function.
  • #281
DarMM said:
According to this view it isn't explained/ lies outside QM. Roland Omnès's book "The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" discusses it more particularly in the final chapter.

bhobba said:
What was it Newton said - Hypotheses non fingo (Latin for "I feign no hypotheses", "I frame no hypotheses", or "I contrive no hypotheses"). It was used by Isaac Newton in an essay, "General Scholium", which was appended to the second (1713) edition of the Principia.
In the video Gell-Mann dismisses as meaningless the idea that two branches are "equally real". Unfortunately he doesn't justify this with anything except incredulity there. So he seems to have at least that much of a hypothesis: before branching things are on the same footing and after branching, there is one actuality.

Do you know the missing argument? Why is it meaningless to talk about two real branches?

bhobba said:
This is the interpretation game. You pick the thing that worries you and that decides the interpretation you prefer. The question to ask is why does it worry you? Einstein initially worried about it, but eventually he put his finger on what really worried him - lack of objective reality as suggested by implications of entanglement. I have recently read a paper on the history of science that suggests complementarity was really entanglement, but obscurely expressed (Bohr was well known for being obscure and he also was a famous mumbler). So one could say that the real issue between Einstein and Bohr was how to view entanglement. Bohr thought it was a general feature of nature and was simply the way it is, Einstein was deeply worried to the point he thought QM incomplete.
I have at least two authors telling me how charismatic Bohr was, so it cracked me up to learn he was a mumbler. And Einstein didn't work well with others. Geniuses, what are you going to do?

Anyway, I know the EPR paper stresses those things, but apparently Einstein thought that the non-local aspect of entanglement was the most important issue. He thought Podolsky, who was responsible for the writing of the paper, made a mess of it and they reportedly had a falling out after.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #282
Minnesota Joe said:
In the video Gell-Mann dismisses as meaningless the idea that two branches are "equally real".

I just had a look at the video again. What he says is what does equally real mean because real is a rather vague term. He prefers on equal footing except for probabilities. Real is one of those terms that is very difficult to pin down exactly - philosophers have been arguing what it is for centuries with no progress as far as I can see. Gell-Mann was just trying to remove that vagueness. While I can't think off hand of another way to do it, a lot of interpretation stuff is just personal preference - Gell-Mann does not like real so replaces it with on equal footing which he prefers - as do I.

Yes the mannerisms of some famous scientists is an interesting topic. I hadn't heard Einstein didn't work well with others though. But gleaning things from recollection, especially others, is fraught with danger as I was reminded again only today. I answered a question on another forum on a topic I have no direct experience with. It was a story someone told me years ago at work - of course I made that clear in the post. One reply was - and today on things that never happened. From his profile he knew a lot more about the subject than me so I would say he is likely right. Human recollection can be quite flawed, especially if its second or third hand, so its best to try and avoid doing what I did, but sometimes its hard to resist. I am sure most have done the exercise on you tell someone in a class something, and they pass it on to the next person and so on. Then the last person repeats what they were told - and it often bears no relation to what the first person was told. For Einstein my reference is Pais - Subtle is the Lord - but even that is fraught with the recollection issue.

Thanks
Bill
 
  • #283
Minnesota Joe said:
In the video Gell-Mann dismisses as meaningless the idea that two branches are "equally real". Unfortunately he doesn't justify this with anything except incredulity there. So he seems to have at least that much of a hypothesis: before branching things are on the same footing and after branching, there is one actuality.

Do you know the missing argument? Why is it meaningless to talk about two real branches?
If you look at his papers and those of others who've worked on similar problems like Omnès or people who work in quantum information it's just basically that QM is probabilistic. It treats them all equally in the sense that each history is assigned a probability of occurrence, but only one history actually occurs. This is no different in a sense to how brownian motion or any other stochastic process treats all paths on equal footing, but only one actually occurs.

Minnesota Joe said:
He thought Podolsky, who was responsible for the writing of the paper, made a mess of it and they reportedly had a falling out after.
This is because Podolsky leaked details of the paper to the popular press.
 
  • Like
Likes Minnesota Joe and bhobba
  • #284
akvadrako said:
But saying that some situation is the same as a dice role doesn't provide an explanation in the same sense.
Again Copenhagen people wouldn't claim it does, they say QM doesn't provide a mechanism for how the history is selected. It's not that they're saying this is an explanation or satisfying in some way, they're saying the quantum formalism doesn't give such an explanation.
 
  • #285
PeterDonis said:
zonde said:
The point is that MWI does not make experimental predictions. MWI predicts experiences of experimenter.
So does every other interpretation of QM, if you want to take this viewpoint. MWI is no different in this respect from other interpretations.
In other interpretations outcome of experiment is objective physical fact independent from experiences of experimenter. This is no so in MWI, in MWI outcome is subjective. That's the difference.

PeterDonis said:
zonde said:
What is prediction in MWI? Observation? Does not seem so.
Why not?
MWI predicts that every possible outcome happens. In order to mach what is observed it predicts that experimenter observes only one of the possible outcomes. So outcome of experiment does not stand on it's own, you have to include experimenter into model and certain relations between outcomes and experimenter. Only then you get what's observed.
 
  • #286
DarMM said:
If you look at his papers and those of others who've worked on similar problems like Omnès or people who work in quantum information it's just basically that QM is probabilistic. It treats them all equally in the sense that each history is assigned a probability of occurrence, but only one history actually occurs. This is no different in a sense to how brownian motion or any other stochastic process treats all paths on equal footing, but only one actually occurs.
That just sounds like a Copenhagen Interpretation. Now with more decoherence.
 
  • #287
zonde said:
In other interpretations outcome of experiment is objective physical fact independent from experiences of experimenter. This is no so in MWI, in MWI outcome is subjective. That's the difference.

MWI predicts that every possible outcome happens. In order to mach what is observed it predicts that experimenter observes only one of the possible outcomes. So outcome of experiment does not stand on it's own, you have to include experimenter into model and certain relations between outcomes and experimenter. Only then you get what's observed.
This seems to be what Sabine Hossenfelder is complaining about in the OP. She is saying that the measurement problem is reintroduced by the prescriptive, non-mathematical part of the theory--the part that attempts to account for our experiences.
 
  • Like
Likes zonde
  • #288
Minnesota Joe said:
That just sounds like a Copenhagen Interpretation. Now with more decoherence.
It is basically the Copenhagen interpretation, but expanded to include sequences of events, i.e. histories, rather than singular experiments alone, and a more precise notion of "classicality". I'm not sure what you mean by "now with more decoherence", decoherence is involved but it's only an aspect of the expansion of Copenhagen. One also has the phase cell analysis for the demonstration that classical logic is a subset of QM. This demonstration is independent of decoherence and there is much more.

I didn't mention decoherence above, so I could be misunderstanding your remark as I'm not sure of the context.
 
  • #289
DarMM said:
It is basically the Copenhagen interpretation, but expanded to include sequences of events, i.e. histories, rather than singular experiments alone, and a more precise notion of "classicality". I'm not sure what you mean by "now with more decoherence", decoherence is involved but it's only an aspect of the expansion of Copenhagen. One also has the phase cell analysis for the demonstration that classical logic is a subset of QM. This demonstration is independent of decoherence and there is much more.

I didn't mention decoherence above, so I could be misunderstanding your remark as I'm not sure of the context.
Not your fault, but mine and multiple conversations. Decoherent histories was being compared favorably to MWI earlier in the thread, so I was just trying to determine what it explains.
 
  • #290
Minnesota Joe said:
This seems to be what Sabine Hossenfelder is complaining about in the OP. She is saying that the measurement problem is reintroduced by the prescriptive, non-mathematical part of the theory--the part that attempts to account for our experiences.
In her video Sabine replaced experimenter with detector and that way made MWI philosophically more acceptable but less elegant and therefore unacceptable for MWI proponents.
But anyways there have to be collapse at some point where we say: from this point onward we will consider only one outcome. If this point happens to be within MWI model then MWI looses it's main selling point - no collapse (Sabine's argument). If it's outside MWI model then MWI does not produce objective predictions (my argument).
 
  • Like
Likes Minnesota Joe
  • #291
AFAIU about an interpretation which is name "consistent histories":
DarMM said:
It is basically the Copenhagen interpretation, but expanded to include sequences of events, i.e. histories, rather than singular experiments alone, and a more precise notion of "classicality". ... One also has the phase cell analysis for the demonstration that classical logic is a subset of QM.
If it contains statements that are in conflict with classical logic, it should be renamed "inconsistent histories" and thrown away.

If there is something in the mathematical apparatus worth not to be thrown away, one should reformulate it in a logically consistent way. The key would be to follow Bell's paper "Against measurement" and stop to name something a measurement which depends not only on the system itself but also on the context.
 
  • #292
zonde said:
In other interpretations outcome of experiment is objective physical fact independent from experiences of experimenter. This is no so in MWI, in MWI outcome is subjective. That's the difference.

No, in MWI the outcome is not subjective. In each branch, all observers agree on what the outcome of a particular experiment was.

The difference between MWI and other interpretations is that in the MWI, there is not a single result of a measurement; instead, all possible results happen, each in a different branch.

zonde said:
MWI predicts that every possible outcome happens.

zonde said:
In order to mach what is observed it predicts that experimenter observes only one of the possible outcomes.

No, it doesn't. It predicts that the copy of the experimenter in each branch observes only one outcome. But none of those copies is "the same" as the experimenter before the measurement, so you can't say that any of the outcomes is "the" outcome that "the" experimenter observed. That's the difference between the MWI and other interpretations; in other interpretations, you can say that "the" experimenter observed just one outcome. In MWI, you can't.

zonde said:
outcome of experiment does not stand on it's own, you have to include experimenter into model and certain relations between outcomes and experimenter. Only then you get what's observed.

Including the relations between the experimenter and the system being experimented on has to be done in any interpretation of QM; it's part of the minimal "shut up and calculate" math of QM.

I can see a way of making "prediction is not observation" true in the MWI, but it's not quite the way you are describing. In the MWI, if we look at the experimenter subsystem as a quantum system, not just one particular branch but the degrees of freedom in that subsystem as a whole, then after the experiment, that subsystem does not have a well-defined state at all, because it is entangled with the system that was experimented on. (The system that was experimented on doesn't have a well-defined state either.) That's what MWI predicts. But that means that, considering the system as a whole, not just one particular branch in isolation, there is no "observation"--the subsystem that is supposed to "observe" is not in a well-defined state at all, so it can't have "observed" anything since that requires it to be in a well-defined state.
 
  • #293
bhobba said:
I just had a look at the video again. What he says is what does equally real mean because real is a rather vague term. He prefers on equal footing except for probabilities. Real is one of those terms that is very difficult to pin down exactly - philosophers have been arguing what it is for centuries with no progress as far as I can see. Gell-Mann was just trying to remove that vagueness. While I can't think off hand of another way to do it, a lot of interpretation stuff is just personal preference - Gell-Mann does not like real so replaces it with on equal footing which he prefers - as do I.
Except Gell-Mann didn't say vague. He said "equally real" has no useful meaning. A vague term can still have useful meaning. What is meant by a "pile of clothes" is vague, because who knows what a 'pile' exactly is, but I understand it well enough to step over it.

I was just curious what he was on about there, because it sounded rather dismissive.
 
  • #294
PeterDonis said:
the copy of the experimenter in each branch observes only one outcome. But none of those copies is "the same" as the experimenter before the measurement, so you can't say that any of the outcomes is "the" outcome that "the" experimenter observed.
This would be strange since then it would be impossible to have identity across measurements for anything, even in the branch that we actually observe...
 
Last edited:
  • #295
A. Neumaier said:
This would be strange since then it would be impossible to have idenitty across measurements for anything, even in the branch that we actually observe...

Your "the branch that we actually observe" is a misuse of language when describing the MWI. There is no single "we" after the measurement, because "we" branch along with everything else. After the measurement there are multiple copies of "we", and each copy observes a different measurement result.

As I have said in previous discussions of the MWI, it's hard even to talk about the MWI using ordinary language, because ordinary language has assumptions built into it that the MWI violates.
 
  • #296
How short is the period of time for a world between MWI branching?

Is it perhaps universally short enough (sub Planck time) that the individual worlds would never have a history, just dt, like an initial condition?
 
  • #297
PeterDonis said:
I can see a way of making "prediction is not observation" true in the MWI, but it's not quite the way you are describing. In the MWI, if we look at the experimenter subsystem as a quantum system, not just one particular branch but the degrees of freedom in that subsystem as a whole, then after the experiment, that subsystem does not have a well-defined state at all, because it is entangled with the system that was experimented on. (The system that was experimented on doesn't have a well-defined state either.) That's what MWI predicts. But that means that, considering the system as a whole, not just one particular branch in isolation, there is no "observation"--the subsystem that is supposed to "observe" is not in a well-defined state at all, so it can't have "observed" anything since that requires it to be in a well-defined state.
Ok, you have doubts that MWI has well defined "observer" at all. But let's assume we can speak about "observers" in MWI.
PeterDonis said:
No, it doesn't. It predicts that the copy of the experimenter in each branch observes only one outcome. But none of those copies is "the same" as the experimenter before the measurement, so you can't say that any of the outcomes is "the" outcome that "the" experimenter observed. That's the difference between the MWI and other interpretations; in other interpretations, you can say that "the" experimenter observed just one outcome. In MWI, you can't.
This seems like terminology issue. I call a "copy of the experimenter" in single branch an "experimenter". And it stands to reason. Experimenter observes single outcome - that's the claim. So the copy of experimenter observing particular outcome is distinct from another copy of experimenter that observes different outcome - these copies should be called distinct "observers".
PeterDonis said:
No, in MWI the outcome is not subjective. In each branch, all observers agree on what the outcome of a particular experiment was.

The difference between MWI and other interpretations is that in the MWI, there is not a single result of a measurement; instead, all possible results happen, each in a different branch.
So we have different groups of observers that observe the same outcome withing the group. Observers from one group can't communicate with observers from different group. And we call these groups of observers "branches". That way for all observers it appears that their observations are objective.

But then what is prediction? It's not that particular outcome happens objectively. Prediction is that group of observers observe the same outcome. So we have prediction and we can go on to the next step - test this prediction.
Who is going to be the experimenter and what measurements he is going to perform to observe this "group of observers observing the same outcome"? And there is the problem - we don't have any superobservers that are not already included into prediction. We can't compare this prediction with reality in a theory neutral way. MWI is modeling it's own confirmation. So it's not scientific theory, it is philosophical theory (we don't test philosophical models against anything - we just embrace them if we consider them useful or ignore them if we consider them useless).
PeterDonis said:
Including the relations between the experimenter and the system being experimented on has to be done in any interpretation of QM; it's part of the minimal "shut up and calculate" math of QM.
I don't follow you there. Where in the math is that relation?
 
  • #298
zonde said:
you have doubts that MWI has well defined "observer" at all

No, I'm just pointing out that you can't use the word "observer" the way it is usually used when talking about the MWI. The same goes for many other ordinary language words, as I have already pointed out.

zonde said:
let's assume we can speak about "observers" in MWI.

No, you can't just "assume" this if you mean by "observer" what is usually meant, because the usual meaning of "observer" makes assumptions that the MWI violates. So "assuming" that you can just speak normally about observers in the MWI means you are being inconsistent.

zonde said:
I call a "copy of the experimenter" in single branch an "experimenter".

Yes, but you can't call the copy "the" experimenter because there isn't just one of them after the measurement. Nor can you say anything about "experimenters" that assumes that there is only one of them after the measurement, or that one particular copy is "the same" as the experimenter before the measurement and the other ones aren't. Doing any of those things means you're being inconsistent.

zonde said:
the copy of experimenter observing particular outcome is distinct from another copy of experimenter that observes different outcome - these copies should be called distinct "observers".

Ok, this is fine. But then you actually have to do it and accept the implications. See below.

zonde said:
what is prediction? It's not that particular outcome happens objectively. Prediction is that group of observers observe the same outcome.

With the above meaning of "observers", so that "group of observers" means "the copies of a group of observers that are all in the same branch", yes.

zonde said:
Who is going to be the experimenter and what measurements he is going to perform to observe this "group of observers observing the same outcome"?

It doesn't matter; all of the observers in the group (in a particular branch, since that's what we're using "observers" and "group" to mean) can communicate with each other (since they're all in the same branch) and verify that they all observed the same outcome. This communication is a classical process and doesn't require any quantum branch points anywhere, so it doesn't raise any quantum measurement issue.

zonde said:
we don't have any superobservers that are not already included into prediction.

We don't need any. See above.

zonde said:
We can't compare this prediction with reality in a theory neutral way.

Yes, we can, for this particular prediction. But that's because you restricted this particular prediction to one branch. The kinds of predictions of the MWI we can't compare with reality in a theory neutral way are predictions about the relative weights of multiple branches (or, for that matter, the existence of multiple branches).

zonde said:
Where in the math is that relation?

In your choice of the measurement operator.
 
  • #299
Minnesota Joe said:
Decoherent histories was being compared favorably to MWI earlier in the thread, so I was just trying to determine what it explains.

You might find this additional video by Gell-Mann useful for seeing what DH potentially brings to the table

https://www.webofstories.com/people/murray.gell-mann/163?o=SH
DH is very closely related to Copenhagen, but it ventures where Copenhagen dares not.
 
  • Like
Likes Minnesota Joe
  • #300
Morbert said:
You might find this additional video by Gell-Mann useful for seeing what DH potentially brings to the table

https://www.webofstories.com/people/murray.gell-mann/163?o=SH
DH is very closely related to Copenhagen, but it ventures where Copenhagen dares not.
Definitely interesting. Thanks! Ha! Copenhagen "sort of strains credulity...it's not a convincing fundamental presentation". That's putting it mildly.
 
  • #301
Minnesota Joe said:
Definitely interesting. Thanks! Ha! Copenhagen "sort of strains credulity...it's not a convincing fundamental presentation". That's putting it mildly.

PS I'm quite sympathetic to the vanilla class of Copenhagen interpretations (DH is sometimes called a neo-Copenhagen interpretation). I just think QM is capable of returning probabilities for a wider range of statements than Copenhagen considers.
 
Last edited:
  • #302
PeterDonis said:
It doesn't matter; all of the observers in the group (in a particular branch, since that's what we're using "observers" and "group" to mean) can communicate with each other (since they're all in the same branch) and verify that they all observed the same outcome. This communication is a classical process and doesn't require any quantum branch points anywhere, so it doesn't raise any quantum measurement issue.
If we are testing prediction there should be a possibility that we observe something different than what is predicted (there should be possibility that prediction is wrong).
So how MWI prediction could be wrong? I see two options:
1) there is single world
2) copies of different observers observing different outcomes can communicate with each other

In first case it is obvious that we should observe that different observers report the same outcome, because outcome then is physical fact and communication is by design such that it is reliable. So we observe the same thing that is predicted. So even if prediction is wrong we would get the same result.
Second case is more complicated. Say in experiment we ask different observers to repeat what they observed (they observe quantum measurement result). So basically observers make a copy of observation. But then the experimenter too should be only a copy of experimenter that is paired with certain outcome. So in a sense he is observing outcome of quantum measurement only just trough more complicated path than more direct observation and other (copies of) observers are just complicated quantum systems that rely quantum measurement result to experimenter. So the possibility that experimenter would receive conflicting reports of quantum measurement result sounds simply inconsistent and rather fake. So possibility of receiving result different from prediction sounds simply inconsistent.

So to me it seems that test of that MWI prediction is quite questionable.
 
  • #303
Morbert said:
PS I'm quite sympathetic to the vanilla class of Copenhagen interpretations (DH is sometimes called a neo-Copenhagen interpretation). I just think QM is capable of returning probabilities for a wider range of statements than Copenhagen considers.
Ah, I'm not very sympathetic to neo-CI theories as I understand it (based on the descriptions here and Wiki) on explanatory grounds, but I appreciate the links anyway and all interpretations have useful contributions. Besides, great physicists like Gell-Mann are always fascinating to hear.

I'm not sure what you mean about QM being capable of returning probabilities for a wider range of statements than Copenhagen. Do you have in mind something like Bayesian inference about propositions?
 
  • #304
PeterDonis said:
No, I'm just pointing out that you can't use the word "observer" the way it is usually used when talking about the MWI. The same goes for many other ordinary language words, as I have already pointed out.
I think you have made good points to me earlier about this, but my difficulty is that a lot of the time MWI is speaking figuratively or adopting a birds eye view of the branch structure. Or identifying "you" as a particular branch path starting in a branch and working backward. Or adopting a psychological continuity sense of identity. (But they also rightly pause to say that "you" don't literally survive branching.) It's kind of a mess.

I just tend to give them a lot of this and admittedly slip into it myself, mostly because it isn't a problem I really want to worry about right now, not wanting to get stuck in the weeds on figurative language. Other critics (like David Albert for example) also skip lightly over this ultimately. MWI has to get it correct when they derive probabilities of course.

You have thought about this more than I obviously. Do you think there is a serious problem, a serious charge that could be leveled at MWI on identity or even language grounds or do you think they can make sense of it?
 
  • #305
zonde said:
how MWI prediction could be wrong?

Different observers in the same branch (which in practice just means "different observers", since different branches can't interact) could observe different results for the same measurement. But we don't observe that.

zonde said:
there is single world

How would you determine this experimentally? That's how you determine whether a prediction is wrong.
 
  • #306
Minnesota Joe said:
Do you think there is a serious problem, a serious charge that could be leveled at MWI on identity or even language grounds or do you think they can make sense of it?

It's possible to exercise the required discipline when using ordinary language to talk about the MWI--either avoid altogether words that are problematic, or give precise technical definitions of them that you then strictly adhere to. It's just not easy, and many people don't do it.
 
  • #307
Minnesota Joe said:
I'm not sure what you mean about QM being capable of returning probabilities for a wider range of statements than Copenhagen. Do you have in mind something like Bayesian inference about propositions?

Copenhagen traditionally limits itself to probabilities for possible measurement outcomes of some experimental procedure carried out by an observer external to the quantum system. DH is concerned with probabilities for coarse grained histories of quantum properties of a system. The latter category includes probabilities for typical lab scenarios of Copenhagen, but also includes probabilities for retrodictive claims, for claims regarding closed systems with internal observers, for processes with a low degree of classicality etc. etc.
 
Last edited:
  • #308
PeterDonis said:
It predicts that the copy of the experimenter in each branch observes only one outcome. But none of those copies is "the same" as the experimenter before the measurement, so you can't say that any of the outcomes is "the" outcome that "the" experimenter observed.
A. Neumaier said:
This would be strange since then it would be impossible to have identity across measurements for anything, even in the branch that we actually observe...
PeterDonis said:
Your "the branch that we actually observe" is a misuse of language when describing the MWI. There is no single "we" after the measurement, because "we" branch along with everything else. After the measurement there are multiple copies of "we", and each copy observes a different measurement result.
By the same token, there is also no "experimenter before the measurement", as the notion of the experimenter would have split before each time someone anywhere in the world would have performed a measurement. Thus the notion of an experimenter (or observer or detector) and even of a system becomes inapplicable and MWI becomes mute about anything in the real world.
PeterDonis said:
As I have said in previous discussions of the MWI, it's hard even to talk about the MWI using ordinary language, because ordinary language has assumptions built into it that the MWI violates.
Well, if one cannot model in MWI ordinary experiments stated in ordinary language then MWI is impotent as an interpretation.
 
Last edited:
  • #311
DarMM said:
Again Copenhagen people wouldn't claim it does, they say QM doesn't provide a mechanism for how the history is selected. It's not that they're saying this is an explanation or satisfying in some way, they're saying the quantum formalism doesn't give such an explanation.

That's why I said in the first reply of this sub-thread that it doesn't explain anything.
 
  • #312
A. Neumaier said:
It is a kind of discrete version of Bohmian mechanics, and only approximately reproduces QM.

Thanks.

Still wondering about the time between splits... your linked site, manyworlds, Q7:

Q7 When do worlds split?

The precise moment/location of the split is not sharply
defined due to the subjective nature of irreversibility, but
can be considered complete when much more than kT of
energy has been released in an uncontrolled fashion into
the environment. At this stage the event has become
irreversible.


That is the first clue I have found.
The wavefunction is for the universe, that which are subject to splits are whole worlds (universes), sufficient kT released anywhere within the universe will invoke a split of the entire universe (or is that not what the MWI means)?

I change Boltzmann's constant 10e-23 J/K to Planck units about 5e-32 Ep/7e-33 Tp about 7 Ep/Tp
Hottest observed stellar surface about 2.5e5 K about 1.75e-27 Tp
7 Ep/Tp * 1.75e-27 Tp is about 1.2e-26 Ep about the range of x-ray photons
Convert to Planck time units
= hbar/Ep
= 1 / 1.2e-26 Ep
= 8e25 tp

= 4.3e-18s ...order of attoseconds between world splits... ?
 
  • #313
bahamagreen said:
Thanks.

Still wondering about the time between splits... your linked site, manyworlds, Q7:

Q7 When do worlds split?

The precise moment/location of the split is not sharply
defined due to the subjective nature of irreversibility, but
can be considered complete when much more than kT of
energy has been released in an uncontrolled fashion into
the environment. At this stage the event has become
irreversible.


That is the first clue I have found.
The contents of that link is mainly nonsense, as my theoretical physics FAQ makes clear.
 
  • #314
akvadrako said:
That's why I said in the first reply of this sub-thread that it doesn't explain anything.

Still much better than to add unsupported assertions and fairytales like many worlds and magical guiding waves which give the appearance of classicality(you can't explain that which you observe by simply stating that it's what you observe- not a good starting point). This is why the CI is in the textbooks and MWI and BM are not.
 
<h2>1. What is the Many-Worlds Interpretation?</h2><p>The Many-Worlds Interpretation is a theory in quantum mechanics that suggests the existence of parallel universes. It proposes that every time a decision or measurement is made, the universe splits into multiple parallel universes, each representing a different outcome. This theory was first introduced by physicist Hugh Everett in the 1950s.</p><h2>2. How does the Many-Worlds Interpretation explain danger?</h2><p>The Many-Worlds Interpretation does not specifically explain danger, but it does suggest that every possible outcome of a situation exists in a different parallel universe. This means that in some parallel universes, a dangerous event may occur while in others it may not. Therefore, the Many-Worlds Interpretation implies that danger is not a fixed concept, but rather a variable that exists in different forms in different parallel universes.</p><h2>3. What are the implications of the Many-Worlds Interpretation for decision-making?</h2><p>The Many-Worlds Interpretation suggests that every possible decision we make creates a new parallel universe. This means that all possible outcomes of a decision actually occur in different parallel universes. Therefore, the Many-Worlds Interpretation implies that our decisions do not have a single outcome, but rather create multiple outcomes in different parallel universes.</p><h2>4. Is the Many-Worlds Interpretation a widely accepted theory?</h2><p>The Many-Worlds Interpretation is a controversial theory and is not widely accepted by the scientific community. While it has gained some support over the years, it is still considered to be a fringe theory by many physicists. This is because it is difficult to test and has not yet been proven to be true.</p><h2>5. How does the Many-Worlds Interpretation relate to other interpretations of quantum mechanics?</h2><p>The Many-Worlds Interpretation is just one of many interpretations of quantum mechanics. It differs from other interpretations, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, in that it suggests the existence of multiple parallel universes. Other interpretations do not propose the existence of parallel universes and instead focus on different explanations for the behavior of particles at the quantum level.</p>

1. What is the Many-Worlds Interpretation?

The Many-Worlds Interpretation is a theory in quantum mechanics that suggests the existence of parallel universes. It proposes that every time a decision or measurement is made, the universe splits into multiple parallel universes, each representing a different outcome. This theory was first introduced by physicist Hugh Everett in the 1950s.

2. How does the Many-Worlds Interpretation explain danger?

The Many-Worlds Interpretation does not specifically explain danger, but it does suggest that every possible outcome of a situation exists in a different parallel universe. This means that in some parallel universes, a dangerous event may occur while in others it may not. Therefore, the Many-Worlds Interpretation implies that danger is not a fixed concept, but rather a variable that exists in different forms in different parallel universes.

3. What are the implications of the Many-Worlds Interpretation for decision-making?

The Many-Worlds Interpretation suggests that every possible decision we make creates a new parallel universe. This means that all possible outcomes of a decision actually occur in different parallel universes. Therefore, the Many-Worlds Interpretation implies that our decisions do not have a single outcome, but rather create multiple outcomes in different parallel universes.

4. Is the Many-Worlds Interpretation a widely accepted theory?

The Many-Worlds Interpretation is a controversial theory and is not widely accepted by the scientific community. While it has gained some support over the years, it is still considered to be a fringe theory by many physicists. This is because it is difficult to test and has not yet been proven to be true.

5. How does the Many-Worlds Interpretation relate to other interpretations of quantum mechanics?

The Many-Worlds Interpretation is just one of many interpretations of quantum mechanics. It differs from other interpretations, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, in that it suggests the existence of multiple parallel universes. Other interpretations do not propose the existence of parallel universes and instead focus on different explanations for the behavior of particles at the quantum level.

Similar threads

  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
3
Views
2K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
2
Replies
47
Views
1K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
21
Views
3K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
8
Views
1K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
5
Views
1K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
3
Views
1K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
2
Views
901
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
2
Replies
49
Views
3K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
8
Views
2K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
14
Views
933
Back
Top