The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics Quantum mechanics (QM) is the physics of the small stuff of the universe

- the s maller the better. (General relativity applies to the big stuff - the bigger the better.) There are three conceptual formulations of QM. They are formulations, not separa te theories, because they are exactly equivalent mathematically. One, due to Sch rdinger, is based upon space-time, wave patterns, and makes the universe look con tinuous. Like, really continuous. Schrdinger functions have no boundary - each on e fills all of possible space. A second, Heisenberg, is based upon observable en ergy movement, quantum jumps, and makes the universe look like particles. In thi s view, all particles but one are made of other particles. The universe is the u ltimate particle. The third, Everett, is based upon information, and makes the u niverse look sensible - like we think we are. In the world of physics, if you want to be right, use Schrdinger and Heisenberg. But, if you want to get things right, try Everett. When some physicists are between ideas, they argue about the 'meaning' of QM. Al l too often, it sounds like democracy being your right to say what you think wit hout thinking. Some of the nonthoughts out there about the Everett formulation a re really, well, out of this world. It's usually referred to by denigrating phys icists and would-be mystics alike as the 'many worlds theory'. As I've mentioned , it isn't a theory. It's exactly the same thing as the Schrdinger and Heisenberg formulations. Any criticism of one is a criticism of them all. But, the Everett formulation is indeed about many worlds, as long as you clarify what a QM world is. The world of a quantum particle is everything that has happened to that particle that can affect its future interactions with other particles. "Many histories" is a better way of describing the concept. But, only things that can affect futu re interactions are part of QM history. Most of what has 'happened to a particle ' can no longer affect its future, because each particle only has a small number of memory locations (quantum degrees of freedom) with which to 'remember' thing s. The far past is not an observable, or, past states are decorrelated. So, "man y memories" is the way I prefer to think of a QM world. Superposition of States The easiest idea in the Everett formulation to jump on at first glance is that e ach time a particle interacts with another particle, 'new worlds' are created, e ach containing a different possible result of that interaction. So, the number o f worlds seems to increase without limit and that is nonsense. It would be nonsense. But, it isn't what happens, in this world anyway. Here is a human analogy of a quantum jump and of multiple worlds. Suppose that your significant other is visiting the next town and, on the radio, you hear that half that town has been blown up by a gas leak. By the time you h ear the news, your other is only in one state. One way or another, the explosion is complete. But, you sure aren't in one state! Half of you is worried that you r bed won't be warm tonight, the other half is worried that the breakfast argume nt will be continued at dinner. You phone your nurturing parent for some solace, and promptly create a pair of worlds at the other end of the telephone line... Finally, you get that phone call, from your s.o. or from the police. One way or another, you make your quantum jump and one of your states (worlds) dissolves fr om reality. Gradually, your family and friends follow suit as they talk to you. Of course, years later, you can still run into someone who asks "Did your ? ?" B ut, once everyone who interacted with any of you when you were in two pieces (in superposed states) has heard the news, or has passed on to that other world, yo ur world is back to being one again with regard to that particular matter.

That's what happens in quantum particles. Quantum worlds fade from existence as fast as new ones are created. The amount of information in a closed universe is constant. And, Schrdinger's cat is in one state - it's us, our knowledge, outside the cat's closed box that's in two states. But you'd never guess that from Schrd inger's formulation. You have to follow the information. An 'observer' can be as small as a single radioactive nucleus - things our size and complexity are not required. In fact, any two even partially-correlated quan ta can 'observe' another single quantum. In the limit, quantum mechanics is a co ntinuous function. Correlation of States There is another aspect of QM that Everett's formulation makes too obvious to av oid - there is no one reality. Every quantum world differs from every other. Exi stence is relative. How can this be? Is our universe not consistent? Again, a human analogy is useful. When you go to a party, you usually meet people you've never met before, whose w orlds you have never known. Some of those worlds can be quite something, too! In physics language, there is little correlation between your states. By the end o f the evening (interaction), you have some shared party experiences - your state s are more correlated than they were before. If you never meet again, the shared memories fade, and your worlds slowly return to almost their previous separaten ess (they decorrelate). You'll never be the same again, but you're still the sam e you. That's what happens in the quantum world too. However, QM takes the concept to i ts limit - every quantum world is correlated with every other world precisely to the degree necessary to keep the universe consistent, and no more. The many wor lds of QM are very precise entities in their own way - the most precise of any p hysical theory we know. The Arrow of Time Another aspect of the universe that Everett's formulation can help to understand is time direction. Time has two distinct attributes. Cyclic time is like a pend ulum. It's reversible, related to Planck's constant, and is obvious from Schrding er's equations. But, time also has a direction to it, and that's not obvious fro m Schrdinger or Heisenberg at all. In fact, many physicists whose student days pr edate Everett still consider the arrow of time to be a flaw of our understanding . It is, however, self-evident in the Everett formulation - quantum worlds abrup tly appear, then gradually fade from existence, a clearly time direction depende nt phenomenon analogous to the appearance and spread of ripples on a pond after a point disturbance. Forget the 'eternal dance' nonsense - things do happen to i ndividual quanta in QM. Entangled States For some, it is an article of faith that there must be things that can never be understood. Having listened as a postgrad student at Cambridge to the clarity of Paul Dirac, and having ended up as a Maxwell's daemon with respect to a single electron of a single atom, I no longer agree. I believe that QM will ultimately prove to be as simple and as understandable as is possible for a theory that per mits the self-organization of sentient creatures such as us. In few areas is thi s view more useful than when considering what happens when one quantum splits in to two. Barely half a century ago, the greatest minds we then had mostly considered that everything I did in my last years at NRC was impossible. Impossible even in pri nciple! When one of Canada's foremost physicists visited my lab at NRC, and saw what I saw, he exclaimed, "I never thought I would live to see this!" (Mind you, another experimentalist, who earlier looked at the complex of lasers I planned

to get working together on my lab table, enquired if I had a death wish!) And ye t, what I ultimately was able to observe was as simple as possible: one quantum, via a Poisson series that was perfectly random excepting only one degree of fre edom - the time scale. A quantum exists between observations - I've followed one for 12 hours, others have for almost a year. So, when one quantum splits into two, follow what's observable. Knowledge of the split constitutes an observation; that's the only way we know the two quanta ar e entangled, and both remain local to this first observation throughout. That fi rst observation is why we can know that when one quantum is set, the other will follow suit. Alternatively, if we don't observe the split, we have no way of kno wing that the two quanta are entangled. In this situation, when one is set, ther e is no way local to the second quantum to know that it is correlated to the fir st; we can determine their entanglement only after the two observations are brou ght to a single reference frame. In physics, observables, EPR is a local experim ent - we just don't understand what the math is telling us yet. Just as we didn' t understand for half a century what the math was telling us about single quanta . Complexity Planck length is roughly 10-35m. We believe this to be the minimum characteristi c length that space can have. The size of our universe is roughly 1026m (dependi ng on how you measure it). In between these, there seem to be two islands of minimal complexity: the size o f a proton plus an electron (atoms): 10-8m, which is determined by QM, and the s ize of typical stars: 109m, which is determined by general relativity. Our size, 2 m, is the geometric mean of these last two. If our world is complex to only a few parts in 108, we can exist between these t wo islands. In fact, we see much more complexity than this. It all seems to be t he product of three-dimensional space interacting with spherical functions. QM m ay in fact be a supremely simple spherical function, and all the complexity requ ired to produce life may be due to the properties of three-dimensional space. Co nsider the complex bonding options of carbon, with only 7 elements, or the asymm etrical shape of a water molecule H2O with only 13. Both are fundamental to life as we know it. The interaction of any spherical function with three-dimensional space may be sufficient to permit the necessary complexity for sentience withou t QM having to provide any of it directly. John Sankey http://web.ncf.ca/bf250/qm.html