I'd like to start off with a little bit more about the Hugh Everett book I just finished. He was a high-level genius in the science of quantum mechanics (QM), and when he was only 27 years old and a graduate student at Princeton, he came up with a mathematical formula that explained away the notorious "measurement paradox" in QM, which states that just by simply taking a measurement of any kind in a quantum system, you are causing the wave function to collapse and appear as a particle instead. The wave function, in rough terms, would be the ultra-microscopic "behind the scenes" version of the particle as it exists on the other side of the wall of reality. By making an observation - i.e. taking a measurement with a metering device - you are causing the wave to disappear so that only a particle is present, the particle being the lone object that exists on this side of reality, the side we see in everyday life, which physicists call the "classical" or macroscopic side.
Now, I haven't the time nor inclination tonight to attempt to go into a long layman's explanation of my own interpretation of what I've read in the book, so to simplify matters I will just say that Hugh Everett took a radical stance against what was generally accepted in QM at the time, which was the Collapse Postulate. This axiom was held as truth by the giants of quantum theory, including Neils Bohr, who was like the God of QM. The physicists of the day could not explain why, in experiments, light beams consisting of photons sometime behaved like particles and sometimes like waves. You can Google all of this stuff if you wish, but anyway, what Everett did that was so revolutionary was that he denied the Collapse Postulate. He had worked out the math, and he presented his theory to his professor, John Wheeler - one of the fathers of the hydrogen bomb - and he said that there is no measurement problem, because the wave doesn't collapse. Instead - and this is important - the observer (meaning The Measurer and his measuring instrument) is part of the wave. When everything is broken down to the quantum level, all quantum systems (meaning spinning particles) are entangled with one another, and thus the entire Universe is one gigantic entangled system. There is also a condition called "superposition", in which like systems are piled upon or behind one another, like ocean waves coming in to shore one at a time. From a frog's point of view, he would only see the wave in front, but a bird would see all the successive waves lined up behind the first one.
This is my "beyond-ultra-simplified" and 0.0001% super brief explanation of Hugh Everett III's "Relative States" theory, written in 1957, which was renamed the "Many Worlds Theory" much later in the 70s or 80s (I forget which) by another physicist after the death of Everett. In short, Everett's theory stated that, first of all, the universe does not need an observer to exist. Many leading QM physicists thought otherwise (though I myself, a non-physicist, agree with Everett). I have always taken the position of a proverbial Rock Sitting In Chatsworth Park for 80 Million Years. Does that rock need me to look at it, for it to exist?
Simply put, the answer is no. That rock would still be sitting there existing even if there were no humans or any other conscious beings to observe it. That's just common sense and you don't need to be a QM genius to see that clearly. But a lot of these guys were so far out there, they thought that the existence of the universe depended, in part, upon conscious observation. Hugh Everett said no. But where his math went way off the charts was when he declared that observation does indeed produce an unusual effect on the wave function, which he believed to be all-encompassing. He believed that underlying All Reality was what he called the Universal Wave Function, everything entangled in one gigantic vibrating wave. And he believed, due to his mathematics, that if a particular observer took a measurement of the wave function from their tiny, relative space inside the wave function, that it caused the branch of reality they were living in (i.e, the Universe), to split off instantaneously into differentiating "universe branches" that encompassed every single physical possibility of a given situation. Think of coming to a fork in the road; what happens if you turn left instead of right? In Everett's system, you turn both ways, and every other way possible, into innumerably differing futures, just by making the decision to turn one single way.
Now, the You that turned a particular way is the only You that You know. But all the other versions of You exist, too. You never see them or interact with them, but according to Hugh Everett, those versions of You and the Universes they live in are just as real as this one that the "You" you know is living in right now.
All of this has to do also with the notion of probability and statistical calculations. When you came to the fork in the road, why did you decide to turn left and not right? What makes a particle move one way and not another, and can it be predicted which way it would move again if the experiment were repeated? Or if you drove to the fork again, would you still turn left? Or would you turn right this time? Everett's probabilistic math, combined with the enormity of the Universal Wave Function, says that - at some point - you (and the particle) would turn every way that is possible, and that the relative angle or perspective in the Universal Wave that you are observing from, and are entangled with, is causing a splitting effect every nanosecond of your life, resulting in uncountable split-off Universes that you are theoretically living in, in other versions of yourself.
I will shut up now, but this was Hugh Everett's vision, and he apparently had the math to back it up. Neils Bohr didn't buy it, and the Many Worlds Theory went unrecognised for decades. Everett himself died in 1982 at the age of only 52. He was a hedonist and a swinger in his personal life, a very unusual character, and he smoked, drank and ate to excess. But as the years went on, other QM physicists began to pick up on his theory. Some tried to improve it, to work out bugs that has caused giants like Bohr to disregard it. Now, according the the book's author Peter Byrne, Everett's theory has gained enough creedence in mainstream QM circles as to not only be taken seriously, but to be accepted as the most likely explanation for the reality of the Universe, that our Universe is merely one of an uncountable number due to a splitting or mirroring effect caused by observation and due to the entanglement of all of our particles with the environment that we live in.
Hugh Everett had a son named Mark. It was because Mark had all his father's papers stored in his basement that this book was made possible. Mark Everett is a musician who became famous in the 1990s as the leader of a band called The Eels. It was really his musical enterprise, he wrote all the songs and sang them. He called himself "E" (for Everett), hence the band name "Eels". The book came about because he had his Dad's papers, but the other factor is that his Dad's life was in part a tragedy. This is recounted in full in the book. Hugh Everett's excesses had a tremendously detrimental effect on his family, a story that becomes harrowing for Mark, and one that I will leave you to discover for yourself.
Though I had heard of The Eels right around the time they came out, about twenty five years ago, I had never and still have not heard any of their music (meaning Mark's music), just because it would not be my style. After 55 years of being a fan of rock music, I can tell the bands I will like. But I always remembered this guy who called himself "E". I can remember him from way back, because his image, in photographs, was so walled-off. It was like "E" had created a fortress to hide behind. He had a huge black beard, way before Millenials made them a fad, he wore dark avaitor sunglasses in every picture, and he often had a big fat cigar in his hand or mouth.
He would have been a musician I would only have encountered in perusing a newspaper or magazine, but in looking back, I remember thinking, "what's the deal with this guy"? It looks like he's hiding behind something. He's got a One Letter Name. He's got an extremely forbidding image (big cigar, beard, shades, et al), and so what's his deal"?
After reading the book about his Dad, I now now what the deal is. It is also important to know what his Dad did for a living, which was to "war game" the possibilities for winning a nuclear war. Hugh Everett made his living in this way, and the chapters in the book that are devoted to this subject are downright terrifying.
Now I will stop, but I really did want to write about this book, and about Hugh Everett (and Mark), because the Everett story is a fascinating and important one.
Hugh Everett, like many scientists, was an Atheist. To me, that is like being a technically adept musician, one who knows music theory inside out but who can't hear the magic of the notes. Someone who thinks that the mathematical relationships of the chord progressions is the magic, instead of simply feeling the emotional beauty of music and knowing instinctively, without question, that it must come from something larger than ourselves.
I could write all day about my bewilderment with the atheism of scientists. To me, God - whatever God is - is so obvious that even if you were unconscious you'd be aware of God, let alone when hearing music, or when contemplating the Universe.
But these scientists love their math, and they are geniuses at it, no doubt. In Hugh Everett's case, he was a math genius and even an intuitive genius of a rare sort, but he still couldn't get past the numbers and the statistics to see something larger. ////
That's all I know for tonight. I did watch a "Ghost Story", and it was Beyond Scary, but I got so carried away with writing about Mr. Everett that I will have to let it pass for now. We did have good singing in church this morning, and I hope you had a great day.
I will see you in the morning with tons of love sent to you through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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