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Who was Hugh Everett?
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Hugh Everett III (1930 to 1982) invented the Many-Worlds interpretation as a Princeton PhD student in 1957. Leading physicists dismissed it, and he left physics for military research and business. He died at 51, before his idea became widely discussed. His son, Mark Oliver Everett, is the singer "E" of the band Eels.
How did the man behind Many-Worlds leave physics?
Card 1 · Princeton, mid-1950s
Everett, a brilliant and irreverent graduate student, is talking late one night with friends, including a visiting assistant of Niels Bohr, over sherry. He starts wondering: what if the quantum equation simply never stops?
Card 2 · The thesis
Under his supervisor John Wheeler he writes it up. If nothing ever collapses, every outcome happens and the observer branches too. Wheeler admires it but worries about upsetting Bohr, and Everett cuts it down heavily before it's published in 1957.
Card 3 · Copenhagen, 1959
Everett visits Bohr to discuss his idea. The meeting goes nowhere. Bohr's circle sees no point in it.
Card 4 · A different life
Even before his doctorate comes through, Everett leaves physics to work for the Pentagon on the mathematics of nuclear war planning, and later running his own consulting firm. He builds early computer methods for optimisation, still cited today.
Card 5 · The revival
In 1970 the physicist Bryce DeWitt promotes the idea in Physics Today and names it "many worlds". Interest grows, especially among cosmologists. Everett gives a few talks but never returns to research.
Card 6 · 1982
Everett dies suddenly of a heart attack at 51. His work becomes one of the most debated ideas in physics after his death.
Card 7 · E
His son Mark Oliver Everett becomes the songwriter "E" of the rock band Eels. In 2007 he makes a BBC documentary, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, travelling to understand the father he barely knew and the theory that outlived him.
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The man behind the multiverse left physics before his idea took off.
Many-Worlds became famous after Everett died.
Next in the path · Chapter 7
What is a qubit, and what does a quantum computer actually do?
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