4 ms·

String theory is probably the one scientific topic I spend the most of my free time learning about. It is fascinating. I have read Brian Greene's 'The Hidden Re

String theory is probably the one scientific topic I spend the most of my free time learning about. It is fascinating. I have read Brian Greene's 'The Hidden Reality' over five times, I think. I recently watched his conversation with Sam Harris and was intrigued by a point Brian made, albeit about quantum mechanics and the 'many worlds' theory. Brian claims that he doesn't think the many worlds theory holds water because it makes an assumption about what happens before some object is measured (A) and after that same object is measured (A'): while many worlds claims that all possibilities are indeed realized, Brian claims that we just don't know for sure what happens between events (A) and (A'); he claims that a unified theory would explain what happens between those events. In any case, that's just me rambling about it. Thanks for the post :)

madhadron 7y ago
Sadly, popular discussions about topics like these are usually not worth spending any time on. There is no shortcut for digging into the math. > while many worlds claims that all possibilities are indeed realized That's...a problematic statement since you have to define "realized" without resorting to any classical concepts. Once you manage to excise the classical concepts you end up with something that is perfectly reasonable. > Brian claims that we just don't know for sure what happens between events (A) and (A'); he claims that a unified theory would explain what happens between those events. I suspect that this was a communications breakdown. It's hard to imagine a quantum physicist today postulating this in the face of the last few decades of experimental and theoretical work on the foundations of quantum mechanics.