When Classical Universes Collide, The Result is Quantum Mechanics, Say Physicists

I shared this on Twitter, but it occurred to me that, although I didn’t have any particular comment to make on it, many of my non-Twitter readers might find it interesting.

The strange behaviour of the quantum world is direct evidence of the interaction between our universe and many other classical universes, according to a new theory of reality.

One of the strangest ideas to emerge from 20th century physics is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which attempts to explain the puzzling, counter-intuitive effects of quantum mechanics.

These puzzling phenomena are things like quantum interference in which a quantum particle passing through a double slit produces an interference pattern, something that can only happen the particle passes through both slits at the same time.

That’s not something that is easy to reconcile with our experience of the universe. So the many-worlds interpretation explains this with the idea that there are actually two universes involved in such an experiment.

In one of these, the particle passes through one slit while in the other universe, it passes through the second slit. In other respects these universes are identical. The interference pattern arises because these universes are in a quantum superposition.

via When Classical Universes Collide, The Result is Quantum Mechanics, Say Physicists — The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium.

I was happy to see this article discuss one of my chief issues with multiverse theories: finding a way to conceivably test them.