Quantum Mechanics Still Doesn't Make Sense | Sean CarrollHe gives a brief explanation of why he believes in many-worlds theory, if you want it straight from him.
New ScientistWhat really happens in the quantum world?
In this conversation, physicist Sean Carroll explores some of the deepest mysteries in quantum mechanics: the famous double-slit experiment, wave function collapse, the Many Worlds interpretation, entropy and the arrow of time.
Speaking to New Scientist reporter Jacklin Kwan, Carroll discusses why electrons appear to behave like waves, how observation seems to affect reality and whether the universe constantly branches into countless parallel worlds. Carroll also explains the measurement problem, the challenges of interpreting quantum theory and why physicists still debate what quantum mechanics is actually telling us about the nature of reality.
Carroll is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author whose work focuses on the foundations of physics, quantum mechanics, cosmology and the nature of time.
He lays it out clearly. When you have a situation where several outcomes seem possible, you forget about making a prediction, and just assume that they all happen in parallel universes.
That's it. It does not really have anything to do with quantum mechanics or the Schroedinger equation. It is just a rule for replacing probabilities with unseen worlds.
You do not even get to say that some worlds are more likely than others. You just have to accept that all possibilities happen, and nothing can be predicted.
I'm a believer in the many worlds interpretation of quantum 16:58 mechanics. ... But really it's just a theory that says you want the answer to the reality problem. Wave functions are real. They represent reality precisely and completely. ...So you observe electrons, not wave functions. The wave function is just a way of representing all the possible observable outcomes. All that is correct. But then he makes the leap to say that "it's no work at all" to accept the possible outcomes as parallel worlds.When I observe the electron, I don't observe the wave function. I observe different possibilities. You can interpret that as saying that what the wave function really is is a superposition of all possible measurement outcomes. And what you're seeing when you measure it is you're picking out one of the set of possibilities with different probabilities. Right?
And so what many worlds ends up saying and it's not an assertion again it's it's comes out of the equations but it says that what you send up with is a superposition but not just of the electron the combined system of the electron and the scientist doing the measurement. There's a superposition of the electron was here and you observed it there plus the electron was there and you observed it there plus the electron was there and you observed it there and the many worlds boom they're there.
And so if you accept the picture of wave functions as superpositions of different measurement outcomes it's no work at all to accept them as superpositions of different possible worlds and then everything is just physics.
I spell all this out, because most readers here probably think I am attacking a straw man when I say how stupid many-worlds theory is. It really is stupid and nonsensical. Just listen to its most eloquent advocate.
It is no work at all to replace a scientific theory with one that makes no predictions. Just say that actual observables are not real, and that the real entities are the imaginary possibilities that no one ever sees. Just forget about making predictions, and brag about the explanatory power of being able to talk about unobservable parallel universes.
I continue to be amazed that anyone takes this nonsense seriously. It is impossible to reconcile this with a scientific worldview. It is the most anti-science philosophy.
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