Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Re: QM and Multiple Worlds Message-ID: <705@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 03:41:29 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.705 Posted: Thu Aug 15 03:41:29 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 06:07:49 EDT References: <486@talcott.UUCP> Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 16 > The 'multiple worlds interpretation' of QM is not a physical theory: > you cannot design an experiment to disprove it, since it postulates that > there is not interaction between its different worlds. The multiple-worlds theory was proposed (by Everett and Wheeler, as I recall) as an alternative to conventional (Copenhagen) quantum theory. It was later shown to make exactly the same predictions. For this reason, it seems to have fallen into neglect. There IS an interaction between the multiple worlds in this theory; but it is just the forward branching process, which is of course inherently probabilistic. "The world" as normally used in conversation actually would encompass the knowable past of our particular slice and all possible futures, i.e. an infinite number of the other "multiple world" slices. It is unfortunate that "world" has these two different meanings when discussing this theory. It certainly is confusing.