(ORDO NEWS) — Every time we make a decision, a different timeline occurs. Every decision we make is a yes/no decision because we either do something or we decide not to do it.
In the quantum universe, each decision is of equal importance: thus, there is a reality where we have chosen “yes” and another where we have chosen “no”. From here arises a huge Multiverse, which contains all the potentialities.
A new reality can be generated by every possible quantum interaction. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest that our entire universe is described by one universal wave function that is constantly splitting and multiplying, creating a new reality with every possible quantum interaction.
This is a pretty bold statement. How did scientists come to this? One of the earliest theories in the history of quantum mechanics is that matter has wavelike properties.
This was first proposed by the French physicist Louis de Broglie, who argued that every subatomic particle has a wave associated with it, just as light can behave both as a particle and as a wave.
Other physicists soon confirmed this radical idea, especially in experiments in which electrons scatter off a thin foil before hitting a target. The way the electrons scattered was more characteristic of a wave than a particle. But then the question arose: What exactly is a wave of matter? How she looks like?
Early quantum theorists such as Erwin Schrödinger believed that the particles themselves were smeared across space in the form of a wave. He developed his famous equation to describe the behavior of these waves, which is still used today.
But Schrödinger’s idea ran into many experimental tests. For example, although an electron in flight behaved like a wave, when it reached its target, it landed as one compact particle, so it could not be physically stretched in space.
Instead, an alternative interpretation began to gain ground. Today we call it the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it is by far the most popular among physicists.
In this model, the wave function – as physicists call the wave-like property of matter – does not actually exist. Instead, it is a mathematical convenience that we use to describe the quantum mechanical probability cloud of where we might find a subatomic particle the next time we look for it.
Obfuscation chains
However, the Copenhagen interpretation has several problems. As Schrödinger himself noted, it is not clear how the wave function turns from a cloud of probabilities before measurement into simply non-existent at the moment of observation.
So perhaps there is something more meaningful about the wave function. Perhaps it is as real as all particles. De Broglie was the first to propose this idea, but he ended up joining the Copenhagen camp. Later physicists such as Hugh Everett looked at the problem again and came to the same conclusions.
By making the wave function be a real thing, we solve this problem of measurement in the Copenhagen interpretation, because measurement ceases to be a super-special process that destroys the wave function.
Instead, what we call a measurement is really just a long series of quantum particles and wave functions interacting with other quantum particles and wave functions.
If you build a detector and shoot electrons at it, for example, at the subatomic level, the electron will not know that it is being measured.
It just hits the atoms on the screen, which sends an electrical signal (consisting of more electrons) down the wire, which interacts with the display, which emits photons that hit the molecules in your eyes, and so on.
In this picture, each particle gets its own wave function, and that’s it. All particles and all wave functions simply interact as they normally do, and we can use the tools of quantum mechanics (such as the Schrödinger equation) to make predictions about how they will behave.
Universal wave function
But quantum particles have a really interesting property due to their wave function. When two particles interact, they don’t just collide with each other; for a short time their wave functions are superimposed on each other.
When this happens, you can no longer have two separate wave functions. Instead, you should have one wave function that describes both particles at the same time.
When particles move apart, they still retain this single wave function. Physicists call this process quantum entanglement – what Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”
When we trace all steps of the measurement, we get a series of entanglements from overlapping wave functions. The electron gets entangled with the atoms in the screen, which get entangled with the electrons in the wire, and so on.
Even the particles in our brain get entangled with the Earth, with all the light coming in and out of our planet, down to every particle in the universe entangled with every other particle in the universe.
With each new entanglement, you have a single wave function that describes all the combined particles. So the obvious implication from the wavefunction being real is that there is a single wavefunction that describes the entire universe.
This is called the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. It got its name when we ask what happens in the process of observation. In quantum mechanics, we never know exactly what a particle will do – sometimes it can go up, sometimes it can go down, and so on.
In this interpretation, each time a quantum particle interacts with another quantum particle, the universal wave function breaks down into many sections, with different universes containing each of the different possible outcomes.
This is how the multiverse comes about. As a result of the interaction of quantum particles with each other, numerous copies of the universe are created, which are constantly repeated.
Each of them is identical except for a tiny difference in some random quantum process. This means that there are many copies of you reading this article right now, and they are all exactly the same, except for some tiny quantum detail.
There are also difficulties with this interpretation – for example, how does this split actually occur? But it’s a radical way to look at the universe and a demonstration of just how powerful a theory quantum mechanics is – what started out as a way to understand the behavior of subatomic particles can control the properties of the entire cosmos.
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