John Wheeler letter to Hugh Everett, 07-July-1977

JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER

Published May 19, 2011• 0 citations

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John Wheeler letter to Paul Benioff, 07-September-1977

JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER

Paul Benioff was a physicist and mathematician working as a research scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He published two papers on Everett interpretation shortly after this letter: Benioff (1977)["Finite and infinite measurement in quantum mechanics and randomness: The Everett interpretation," Journal of Mathematical Physics 18(12), 2289] and Benioff (1978) ["A Note on the Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," Foundations of Physics 8(9/10), 709]. In both cases, Benioff was interested in the role of infinite sequences of measurements in the Everett interpretation. This letter is a response to Benioff having sent the second of these papers as a preprint. Wheeler reiterates that he would prefer if Benioff did not use his name when referring to the Everett interpretation.

May 19, 20110 citations

John Wheeler letter to Paul Benioff, 07-July-1977

JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER

Paul Benioff was a physicist and mathematician working as a research scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He published two papers on Everett interpretation shortly after this letter: Benioff (1977) ["Finite and infinite measurement in quantum mechanics and randomness: The Everett interpretation," Journal of Mathematical Physics 18(12), 2289] and Benioff (1978) ["A Note on the Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," Foundations of Physics 8(9/10), 709]. In both cases, Benioff was interested in the role of infinite sequences of measurements in the Everett interpretation. In this letter, Wheeler seems to approve of Benioff's central point in the first paper (which appears to be the one he originally sent), but encourages Benioff to pass the preprint on to Everett. He also suggests that Benioff should call his topic of study the "Everett interpretation" and not the "Everett-Wheeler interpretation"—in part because Wheeler no longer subscribes to the view. The letter also includes a handwritten comment by Everett that Wheeler only accepts his interpretation on alternating Tuesdays.

May 19, 20110 citations

Letters to Paul Benioff

Christopher A. Fuchs

09 April 1996, “Randomness” I don't know if you remember me, but we met at the Santa Fe Institute Workshop on the Physics of Information two summers ago. I spoke to you about your old papers on randomness and quantum mechanics. In any case, I am very much interested in them again. (Presently, in particular, the ones titled “Finite and Infinite Measurement Sequences in Quantum Mechanics and Randomness: The Everett Interpretation” JMP 18 (1977) 2289, and “A Note on the Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” Found. Phys . 8 (1978) 709.) Carl Caves and I are writing a book on Quantum Information and are trying to get a feel for how far these sorts of considerations really go toward deriving the standard probability expression of quantum theory. Last night I reread the latter of the two papers mentioned above. The main question on my mind now is about Section 4 “The Asymptotic Description.” At the end you state, “Thus it is an open question whether or not there is any possible state description of the asymptotic situation that includes component states each corresponding to a possible universe as perceived by an observer with memory trace ν.” Has there been any progress in this direction since then?? If there has, could you please send me a reference or outline the solution?

Cambridge University Press eBooksJan 6, 20110 citations

Norbert Wiener letter to John Wheeler and Hugh Everett, 9-April-1957

Norbert Wiener

MIT mathematician, physicist, and polymath Norbert Wiener was among the physicists who received preprints of Hugh Everett and John Wheeler's Review of Modern Physics articles. Wiener at this time was developing his own alternative mathematical/interpretive framework for quantum mechanics, and here he projects some of his own views on Everett while offering criticism of Everett's particular approach. Everett, meanwhile, disavows in his marginal comments several of the ideas that Wiener attributes to him.

May 19, 20110 citations

John Wheeler letter to Hugh Everett, 21-September-1955

John A. Wheeler

Before writing the long thesis, Hugh Everett wrote three short papers on topics that would ultimately be discussed in the thesis. Here John Wheeler responds to those. Wheeler expresses his belief that one of the papers is essentially publishable already; a second, though, he thinks need to be toned down before he shows it to Bohr.

Sep 21, 19550 citations

A Brief History of the Misinterpretation of the Everett Interpretation

D.E. Moley

In April of 1956, Hugh Everett III’s draft doctoral thesis, tentatively titled “Wave Mechanics without Probability”, was circulated by his thesis advisor at Princeton University John Wheeler to several leading physicists in the West, including the godfather of quantum mechanics Niels Bohr. Everett aimed at resolving the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Everett’s solution to the mystery of how, when, where and why the wave function collapses in the measurement process was straightforward: it does not. Due to the opposition of Bohr and other adherents to the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, an objection by Feynman and Wheeler’s growing ambivalence, Everett was required to abridge his thesis, resulting in the publication of “’Relative State’ Formulation of Quantum Mechanics” in July 1957. Everett’s machinery of interpretation, including his information and measure theoretic interpretation of the wave function, his concept of correlation within the superposition, as well as his philosophy of science which provides important context for his theory, are largely absent from the latter “Short Thesis”. Perhaps due to the unusual publication history of his works, many critics of Everett and even many of his supporters have overlooked the significance of the arguments made in the “Long Thesis”, which was published only in 1973. Everett’s fuller exposition there answers often cited criticisms such as Adrian Kent’s “Against Many Worlds Interpretations”. Other popular misconceptions about Everett, that he was driven out of academia or that his thesis was redacted due solely or primarily to the opposition from Copenhagen, do not stand up to careful scrutiny of the historical evidence.

Jan 1, 20210 citations