Hugh Everett's long thesis was submitted to John Archibald Wheeler, his doctoral thesis advisor, in January 1956 under the title "Quantum Mechanics by the Method of the Universal Wave Function.'' It was retitled "Wave Mechanics Without Probability'' and circulated in April of that year to several prominent physicists, including Niels Bohr. Largely due to the criticism of the long thesis by the Copenhagen colleagues, Everett and his advisor John Wheeler rewrote Everett's thesis in the winter of 1957 to produce a much shorter version, which Everett subsequently defended for his Ph.D. under the title "On the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.'' While the long thesis was organized around the quantum measurement problem and how it is best solved by pure wave mechanics, the short thesis presented Everett's relative-state formulation of pure wave mechanics more as a suitable theory for the development of quantum gravity, cosmology, and field theory. The short thesis no longer contains Everett's chapter on information theory and correlation, his survey of possible solutions to the measurement problem, or his extended discussion of the nature of physical theories. What remains is a distilled presentation of pure wave mechanics, his principle of the fundamental relativity of states, and his derivation of the standard quantum statistics. The short thesis was retitled for publication in Reviews of Modern Physics in July 1957 as "The `Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.'' The version below closely follows the Reviews of Modern Physics article. The long thesis itself was not published until 1973 in the DeWitt and Graham Princeton University Press anthology. It was published under the title "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function." This document is a reproduction of the version of the thesis published in the DeWitt-Graham anthology.
Hugh Everett's long thesis was submitted to John Archibald Wheeler, his doctoral thesis advisor, in January 1956 under the title "Quantum Mechanics by the Method of the Universal Wave Function.'' It was retitled "Wave Mechanics Without Probability'' and circulated in April of that year to several prominent physicists, including Niels Bohr. Largely due to the criticism of the long thesis by the Copenhagen colleagues, Everett and his advisor John Wheeler rewrote Everett's thesis in the winter of 1957 to produce a much shorter version, which Everett subsequently defended for his Ph.D. under the title "On the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.'' While the long thesis was organized around the quantum measurement problem and how it is best solved by pure wave mechanics, the short thesis presented Everett's relative-state formulation of pure wave mechanics more as a suitable theory for the development of quantum gravity, cosmology, and field theory. The short thesis no longer contains Everett's chapter on information theory and correlation, his survey of possible solutions to the measurement problem, or his extended discussion of the nature of physical theories. What remains is a distilled presentation of pure wave mechanics, his principle of the fundamental relativity of states, and his derivation of the standard quantum statistics. The short thesis was retitled for publication in Reviews of Modern Physics in July 1957 as "The `Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.'' The version below closely follows the Reviews of Modern Physics article. The long thesis itself was not published until 1973 in the DeWitt and Graham Princeton University Press anthology. It was published under the title "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function." This document is a reproduction of the version of the thesis published in the DeWitt-Graham anthology.
Hugh Everett's long thesis was submitted to John Archibald Wheeler, his doctoral thesis advisor, in January 1956 under the title "Quantum Mechanics by the Method of the Universal Wave Function.'' It was retitled "Wave Mechanics Without Probability'' and circulated in April of that year to several prominent physicists, including Niels Bohr. Largely due to the criticism of the long thesis by the Copenhagen colleagues, Everett and his advisor John Wheeler rewrote Everett's thesis in the winter of 1957 to produce a much shorter version, which Everett subsequently defended for his Ph.D. under the title "On the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.'' While the long thesis was organized around the quantum measurement problem and how it is best solved by pure wave mechanics, the short thesis presented Everett's relative-state formulation of pure wave mechanics more as a suitable theory for the development of quantum gravity, cosmology, and field theory. The short thesis no longer contains Everett's chapter on information theory and correlation, his survey of possible solutions to the measurement problem, or his extended discussion of the nature of physical theories. What remains is a distilled presentation of pure wave mechanics, his principle of the fundamental relativity of states, and his derivation of the standard quantum statistics. The short thesis was retitled for publication in Reviews of Modern Physics in July 1957 as "The 'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.'' The version below closely follows the Reviews of Modern Physics article. The long thesis itself was not published until 1973 in the DeWitt and Graham Princeton University Press anthology. It was published under the title "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function." Although Everett did not publish the long thesis, he nonetheless kept a copy of it, and appears to have returned to it periodically to make changes even after the short thesis appeared in print. This document is a scanned version of Everett's personal copy of his long thesis, with his collected comments and changes.
Hugh Everett's long thesis was submitted to John Archibald Wheeler, his doctoral thesis advisor, in January 1956 under the title "Quantum Mechanics by the Method of the Universal Wave Function.'' It was retitled "Wave Mechanics Without Probability'' and circulated in April of that year to several prominent physicists, including Niels Bohr. Largely due to the criticism of the long thesis by the Copenhagen colleagues, Everett and his advisor John Wheeler rewrote Everett's thesis in the winter of 1957 to produce a much shorter version, which Everett subsequently defended for his Ph.D. under the title "On the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.'' While the long thesis was organized around the quantum measurement problem and how it is best solved by pure wave mechanics, the short thesis presented Everett's relative-state formulation of pure wave mechanics more as a suitable theory for the development of quantum gravity, cosmology, and field theory. The short thesis no longer contains Everett's chapter on information theory and correlation, his survey of possible solutions to the measurement problem, or his extended discussion of the nature of physical theories. What remains is a distilled presentation of pure wave mechanics, his principle of the fundamental relativity of states, and his derivation of the standard quantum statistics. The short thesis was retitled for publication in \\emph{Reviews of Modern Physics} in July 1957 as "The `Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.'' This document is Everett's short thesis, as submitted to Princeton for his degree.
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.
As a close friend and collaborator of John Wheeler's, Bryce S. DeWitt was one of the first people to see a draft of the short version of Hugh Everett's thesis (he did not read the longer version until much later, as is evidenced by some of the complaints in this letter). In May 1957, DeWitt wrote a long and thoughtful letter to Wheeler about how Everett's theory had conceptual parallels with Einstein's theory of general relativity. Wheeler promptly forwarded a copy of the letter to Everett. DeWitt was unhappy with both wave function collapse and the Copenhagen Interpretation. He wrote that Everett's formalistic argument for pure wave mechanics was `"beautifully consistent''. But he could not accept the ontological ramifications of the theory because, `"I simply do not branch.'' This document is Everett's copy of the letter, as reproduced by Wheeler's secretary. It differs from Wheeler's own copy by several sentences at the bottom of page 4, cut off during the reproduction process. It is likely that Everett never saw these missing sentences.
As a close friend and collaborator of John Wheeler's, Bryce DeWitt was one of the first people to see a draft of the short version of Hugh Everett's thesis (he did not read the longer version until much later, as is evidenced by some of the complaints in this letter). In May 1957, DeWitt wrote a long and thoughtful letter to Wheeler about how Everett's theory had conceptual parallels with Einstein's theory of general relativity. Wheeler promptly forwarded a copy of the letter to Everett. DeWitt was unhappy with both wave function collapse and the Copenhagen Interpretation. He wrote that Everett's formalistic argument for pure wave mechanics was "beautifully consistent''. But he could not accept the ontological ramifications of the theory because, "I simply do not branch.'' This document is the original letter, as saved by Wheeler. It includes several sentences on the bottom of page 4 that were cut off when Wheeler's secretary reproduced the letter for Everett.
Before writing a first draft of the long thesis, Hugh Everett wrote three short papers, often refered to as his minipapers, for John Wheeler to review. This minipaper, called "Quantitative measure of correlation," lays some groundwork for the application of information theory as a measure of the degree of quantum correlation or entanglement. From very early in the project, Everett thought that Shannon information theory would provide insight into pure wave mechanics. While statistical measures, such as standard deviation, would have sufficed, Everett developed information-theoretic measures to represent such things as the width of distributions and the degree of correlation between the states of multiple systems. He thought that the standard quantum uncertainty relations were best expressed in an information theoretic way. The present document is the typed version of the minipaper that Wheeler would have seen and commented on.