The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

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Steven strict: I'm trying to work with an interpretation of quantum theory that doesn't require anything external. The funny thing in cosmology though, we often think about quantum mechanics and the many world interpretation when we think about future branches. In a sense, you could say the multiverse, it's almost we are behaving as if we have access to an infinite amount of information. Whereas of course, from an observer's perspective within the universe, there's the extent to which our observations distill one or another branch of the wave function is finite.

Is there a multiverse, and if so, how should we think of ourselves within it? In many modern cosmological models, the universe includes more than one realm, with possibly different laws of physics, and these realms may or may not include intelligent observers. There is a longstanding puzzle about how, in such a scenario, we should calculate what we, as presumably intelligent observers ourselves, should expect to see. Today's guest, Thomas Hertog, is a physicist and longstanding collaborator of Stephen Hawking. They worked together (often with James Hartle) to address these questions, and the work is still ongoing.

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Thomas Hertog received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a professor of theoretical physics at KU Leuven. His new book is On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory.

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