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PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
consciousness." In fact, he even expressed an interest in the Vedanta
philosophy of Hinduism, in which the universe is pervaded by an allembracing consciousness.)
Another viewpoint on the paradox is the "many worlds" idea, proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957, which states that the universe simply
splits in half, with a live cat in one half and a dead cat in the other. This
means that there is a vast proliferation or branching of parallel universes each time a quantum event occurs. Any universe that can exist,
does. The more bizarre the universe, the less likely it is, but nonetheless these universes exist. This means there is a parallel world in
which the Nazis won World War II, or a world where the Spanish Armada was never defeated and everyone is speaking in Spanish. In
other words, the wave function never collapses. It simply continues on
its way, merrily splitting off into countless universes.
As MIT physicist Alan Guth has said, "There is a universe where
Elvis is still alive, and Al Gore is President." Nobel laureate Frank
Wilczek says, "We are haunted by the awareness that infinitely many
slightly variant copies of ourselves are living out their parallel lives
and that every moment more duplicates spring into existence and take
up our many alternative futures."
One point of view that is gaining in popularity among physicists is
something called "decoherence." This theory states that all these parallel universes are possibilities, but our wave function has decohered
from them (i.e., it no longer vibrates in unison with them) and hence
no longer interacts with them. This means that inside your living room
you coexist simultaneously with the wave function of dinosaurs,
aliens, pirates, unicorns, all of them believing firmly that their universe is the "real" one, but we are no longer "in tune" with them.
According to Nobel laureate Steve Weinberg, this is like tuning into
a radio station in your living room. You know that your living room is
flooded with signals from scores of radio stations from around the
country and the world. But your radio tunes into only one station. It
has "decohered" from all the other stations. (In summing up, Weinberg
notes that the "many worlds" idea is "a miserable idea, except for all
the other ideas")
PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
consciousness." In fact, he even expressed an interest in the Vedanta
philosophy of Hinduism, in which the universe is pervaded by an allembracing consciousness.)
Another viewpoint on the paradox is the "many worlds" idea, proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957, which states that the universe simply
splits in half, with a live cat in one half and a dead cat in the other. This
means that there is a vast proliferation or branching of parallel universes each time a quantum event occurs. Any universe that can exist,
does. The more bizarre the universe, the less likely it is, but nonetheless these universes exist. This means there is a parallel world in
which the Nazis won World War II, or a world where the Spanish Armada was never defeated and everyone is speaking in Spanish. In
other words, the wave function never collapses. It simply continues on
its way, merrily splitting off into countless universes.
As MIT physicist Alan Guth has said, "There is a universe where
Elvis is still alive, and Al Gore is President." Nobel laureate Frank
Wilczek says, "We are haunted by the awareness that infinitely many
slightly variant copies of ourselves are living out their parallel lives
and that every moment more duplicates spring into existence and take
up our many alternative futures."
One point of view that is gaining in popularity among physicists is
something called "decoherence." This theory states that all these parallel universes are possibilities, but our wave function has decohered
from them (i.e., it no longer vibrates in unison with them) and hence
no longer interacts with them. This means that inside your living room
you coexist simultaneously with the wave function of dinosaurs,
aliens, pirates, unicorns, all of them believing firmly that their universe is the "real" one, but we are no longer "in tune" with them.
According to Nobel laureate Steve Weinberg, this is like tuning into
a radio station in your living room. You know that your living room is
flooded with signals from scores of radio stations from around the
country and the world. But your radio tunes into only one station. It
has "decohered" from all the other stations. (In summing up, Weinberg
notes that the "many worlds" idea is "a miserable idea, except for all
the other ideas")