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The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III - Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family (Paperback)
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The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III - Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family (Paperback)
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Peter Byrne tells the story of Hugh Everett III (1930-1982), whose
"many worlds" theory of multiple universes has had a profound
impact on physics and philosophy. Using Everett's unpublished
papers (recently discovered in his son's basement) and dozens of
interviews with his friends, colleagues, and surviving family
members, Byrne paints, for the general reader, a detailed portrait
of the genius who invented an astonishing way of describing our
complex universe from the inside. Everett's mathematical model
(called the "universal wave function") treats all possible events
as "equally real", and concludes that countless copies of every
person and thing exist in all possible configurations spread over
an infinity of universes: many worlds. Afflicted by depression and
addictions, Everett strove to bring rational order to the
professional realms in which he played historically significant
roles. In addition to his famous interpretation of quantum
mechanics, Everett wrote a classic paper in game theory; created
computer algorithms that revolutionized military operations
research; and performed pioneering work in artificial intelligence
for top secret government projects. He wrote the original software
for targeting cities in a nuclear hot war; and he was one of the
first scientists to recognize the danger of nuclear winter. As a
Cold Warrior, he designed logical systems that modeled "rational"
human and machine behaviors, and yet he was largely oblivious to
the emotional damage his irrational personal behavior inflicted
upon his family, lovers, and business partners. He died young, but
left behind a fascinating record of his life, including
correspondence with such philosophically inclined physicists as
Niels Bohr, Norbert Wiener, and John Wheeler. These remarkable
letters illuminate the long and often bitter struggle to explain
the paradox of measurement at the heart of quantum physics. In
recent years, Everett's solution to this mysterious problem - the
existence of a universe of universes - has gained considerable
traction in scientific circles, not as science fiction, but as an
explanation of physical reality.
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