Question

Can someone explain everetts many worlds interpretation?

Answer 1

Hmmm... I remember watching a lecture about this interpretation by an MIT student on MIT's OpenCourseWare site. Very engaging and fun lecture (Watch Lecture 5 for parallel universes): http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/courses/excitatory-topics-in-physics/video-lectures/

Here's also an excellent article by Stanford on the subject: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/

Personally, I doubt that it's true; it's only a theory anyway and there's no way to verify it. Notice that DiBella is stumped several times when he's cross-examined on the subject, and finally explains that he's only repeating what his professors have taught him. Though it's a fascinating subject, I wouldn't put too much weight on it.

Answer 2

I know its unlikely that this theory is true, but i guess people had trouble believing Newton when he told them that the earth pulled them towards it. Its a bad example but what i mean by it is that just because it doesn't fit into todays "logical thinking" that doesnt mean it cant be true. I personally dont believe this theory but what if it IS true..

Answer 3

There are reasons - for example, infinity contained inside infinity?

DiBella couldn't explain that when questioned.

Answer 4

Was DiBella that teacher on the video?

Answer 5

Yes - and at the time Nick DiBella was also a student at MIT.

Answer 6

By the way, good point about Newton's revolutionary discoveries. We don't want to reject anything just because it doesn't fit with "common sense." Quantum physics is certainly not "common sense." Albert Einstein replied to this accusation as follows: "Common sense is that layer of prejudice laid down in the mind prior to age eighteen."

If we had decided the fate of Einsten's theories merely by "common sense," we wouldn't have conducted the experiments and observations that later demonstrated the veracity of special relativity and quantum mechanics.

As you noted, however, special relativity and parallel universes are not really comparable. Special relativity can be experimentally verified; the parallel universe theory cannot - it's just an interesting (though in my opinion, extremely unlikely) possibility.

Answer 7

A possible way to explain infinity contained inside of infinity is to imagine that on a number line it stretches outwards to infinity in both directions, however between any two numbers you also have an infinite number of fractions that you can divide that segment into. But I haven't seen it so I don't know if that applies.

Answer 8

Interesting point - but that would mean everyday objects have infinite volume; an infinite number of points is not what we mean by infinity here...