From: greg@godzilla.quotron.com (Greg "Maddog" Knauss)
Subject: Re: Parallel Universe Nuttiness
Keywords: Llamas!  Llamas in my hair!
Organization: Quotron Systems, Inc
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:09:46 GMT


>cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>>>alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross) writes:
>>>
>>>> [Description of Schrodinger's Cat deleted.  I think we lost everybody
>>>>  who didn't know about it already...]
>>>
>>>>When the box is opened, two universes split off -- one in which the cat is
>>>>at the unopened box and crow that the box contains a cat which is exactly
>>>>half-dead, but none of them are willing to get in the box in ordr to report
>>>>precisely what being half-dead feels like.
>>>
>>
>>Physics says absolutely NOTHING about "universes splitting off"
>>ANYWHERE.  It says only that, through the act of observation, we have
>>influenced the universe in some way -- that you can't say that you
>>"just" observe anything.  It says that the observer and the observed
>>interact with one another through the act of observation.  "Splitting
>>universes" are a science-fiction extension of this idea, the same way
>>the Special Relativity was "extended" by some sci-fi crackpot to mean
>>"Oh, we travel backward in time when we go faster than light!"
>>(I'm using sci-fi in the most denigrating way possible here.)
>>
>>Try to keep track of what physics says, and what "sci-fi" says physics
>>says.  Splitting universes are a nice idea, but (unfortunately, because
>>physicists are intrigued by the idea, too) there is NO THEORETICAL OR
>>EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FOR IT.
>
>	Now, now Janice, don't get too hyper on us.  Take a deep breath.
>There, don't you feel a lot better?  
>	To get back to the multiple universe theory, it's not a sci-fi.  It
>is actually a genuine physics hypothesis called Everett Hypothesis.  It is
>a solution to the Schroedinger's Cat problem (and other "paradoxes" in quantum
>physics) advanced by Hugh Everett III.
>	There are theories that are more crackpot than Everett Hypothesis,
>so let's not get too hyper.  It's just one of many that are trying to explain
>quantum effects.  As far as I know, none of these theories have solid
>evidence for it.  (otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them...)  Finally,
>yes, I am a physics major.
>

Actually, I think the complete crack-pot theory is credited as
Everett-Wheeler-Graham.  And, really, it IS sci-fi in that it's
speculative fiction, just like everything else that there's no
solid, empirical evidence for -- say, a whole lot of theoretical
physics:  any GUT, super-strings, any Schrodinger's Cat solution. 
You guys are arguing semantics, that this is SCIENCE and this is
FICTION.  But they cross and mingle all the time, and what was science
becomes fiction and what was fiction becomes science.  E-W-G is
certainly POSSIBLE, that makes it science -- or at least potential
science -- but not proven, that makes it fiction.
	As for as how possible it is, I think Greg Benford (a physist,
if that adds to his credibility) gave a real good argument against it:
It's wasteful.  Nature, given other possibilities, isn't likely to
go to the trouble of generating an entirely new universe for every
quantum indeterminacy.  It makes for neat stories, though.
	Now, if you wanna talk REAL crack-pot theories, there's
always Conciousness Non-Locality...
	Finally, yep, you guessed it, I'm was political science major.

-- 
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 Greg "Maddog" Knauss                      My boss doesn't know I'm doing this,
 greg@{duke|godzilla}.quotron.com                so I doubt he'd agree with me.
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