Related papers: Infinite multiverses and where to find them?
It is argued that the three main quantum interpretations, Copenhagen, de Broglie-Bohm, and Many-Worlds, support the Principle Q (Quantum): Not all what matters for physical phenomena is contained in space-time. This principle underpins…
Evolution needs long times and large numbers of samples or species. Our finely tuned physics can therefore not have evolved during the fast changes of a single Big-Bang universe, but the cosmological scales for time and for the number of…
Applications of quantum mechanics have led to many successful predictions and explanations of puzzling phenomena, and we now apply quantum mechanics to gain, process, and communicate information in novel ways. We can understand quantum…
We perform an experimental test where we directly observe light-induced electron transitions with a macroscopic spatial discontinuity. The effect is related to the fundamental indivisibility of macroscopic orbit-like quantum states…
Years ago, Itamar Pitowski asked two relevant questions: Why microphysical (quantum) phenomena and classical phenomena differ in the way they do? and, what kind of explanation could qualify as a reasonable one? I argue that both questions…
I. The arena of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory is the abstract, unobserved and unobservable, M-dimensional formal Hilbert space [not equal to] spacetime. II. The arena of observations and, more generally, of all events (i.e.…
Several new physics experiments in 1998 were performed and analyzed to show the subtlety of quantum theory, including the "wave-particle duality" and the non-separability of two-particle entangled state. Here it is shown that the…
Quantum theory is often presented as the theory describing the microscopic world, and admittedly, it has done this extremely well for decades. Nonetheless, the question of whether it applies at all scales and in particular at human scales…
This paper explores the idea that the universe is a virtual reality created by information processing, and relates this strange idea to the findings of modern physics about the physical world. The virtual reality concept is familiar to us…
It is shown that if - and only if - ``parallel universes'' exist, an electroweak vacuum that is expected to have decayed since the big bang with a high probability might exist. It would neither necessarily render our existence unlikely nor…
This article provides a popular, largely non-technical explanation of how large objects can behave classically while smaller objects behave quantum mechanically, based on the effect of the presence of cosmic expansion velocities in extended…
At first sight, an accurate description of the state of the universe appears to require a mind-bogglingly large and perhaps even infinite amount of information, even if we restrict our attention to a small subsystem such as a rabbit. In…
Advances in our understanding of the physical universe have impacted dramatically on how we view ourselves. Right at the core of all modern thinking about the universe is the assumption that dynamics is an elemental feature that exists…
Could we hear the pop of a wave-function collapse, and if so, what would it sound like? There exist reconstructions or modifications of quantum mechanics (collapse models) where this archetypal signature of randomness exists and can in…
For a toy version of a quantum system with a conscious observer, it is demonstrated that the many-worlds problem is solved by retreating into the conscious subspace of an entire observer history. In every step of a discretised time, the…
A new ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics is proposed according to which the ensemble associated to a quantum state really exists: it is the ensemble of all the systems in the same quantum state in the universe. Individual systems…
While our natural intuition suggests us that we live in 3D space evolving in time, modern physics presents fundamentally different picture: 4D spacetime, Einstein's block universe, in which we travel in thermodynamically emphasized…
In a model where a multiverse wavefunction explores a multitude of vacua with different symmetries and parameters, properties of universes closely related to ours can be understood by examining the consequences of small departures of…
This essay considers a model quantum universe consisting of a very large box containing a screen with two slits and an observer (us) that can pass though the slits. We apply the modern quantum mechanics of closed systems to calculate the…
Recent advances in string theory and inflationary cosmology have led to a surge of interest in the possible existence of an ensemble of cosmic regions, or universes, among the members of which key physical parameters, such as the masses of…