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Parallel Universes Colliding Could Explain Quantum Weirdness

RichardGarfinkle

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The article itself is mathematically interesting, but it has a number of weird aspects. The first is that quantum phenomena are explained as standard Newtonian phenomena but with a force allowing for inter universe interactions. In effect, a particle might move mysteriously because in a nearby universe there are other particles exerting a gravitational affect on the particles.

There's also another oddity in the theory. They explicitly say that the uncertainty in position and momentum arises because you don't know which universe you are in. But their idea of a universe is essentially a configuration of particles. So, once one does know the positions of particles in ones universe (by the standard method of observation), one would have a permanent piece of information that could be used to map positions and momenta in nearby universes etc.

In effect, it would be possible over time to obtain a multiversal map that would reduce the entire structure to one of Newtonian determinism.

There's another hidden peculiarity. Their interuniversal forces seem to just be the standard forces acting in a different direction. But each of those forces uses exchange particles. Therefore, energy is crossing over between universes. But this makes this one entire bound system, not multiple systems. So the multiverse is evolving as a single deterministic system that operates in a Newtonian manner.

I have a lot of doubts about this, but we'll see what other physicists have to say.
 

King Neptune

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I also have doubts, but some parts of it may get recycled into something a little better.

After reading it, I realized that part of this has been around for a few years, but I don't remember how it was presented in the past.
 

Maxx

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I also have doubts, but some parts of it may get recycled into something a little better.

After reading it, I realized that part of this has been around for a few years, but I don't remember how it was presented in the past.

I saw Peter Woit's remarks on something like this. He said, something like, "I explain QM in the first part of my intro class."
 

King Neptune

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I saw Peter Woit's remarks on something like this. He said, something like, "I explain QM in the first part of my intro class."

Then which theory was it that called the different things "branes"? That term is short for "membranes".
 

Maxx

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Then which theory was it that called the different things "branes"? That term is short for "membranes".

No, you are correct. It was plain old QM that the colliding universes were supposed to explain. Woit was just being cranky (if correct as far as when it was in the term that he would be explaining QM). The joke is that to explain QM you sort of have to do what theorists did in the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s and work out Quantum electrodynamical (QED) level theories. Or (to put it another way) from Woits point of view, you don't need extra universes to explain QM, you just need to finish your intro semester.
 

King Neptune

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No, you are correct. It was plain old QM that the colliding universes were supposed to explain. Woit was just being cranky (if correct as far as when it was in the term that he would be explaining QM). The joke is that to explain QM you sort of have to do what theorists did in the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s and work out Quantum electrodynamical (QED) level theories. Or (to put it another way) from Woits point of view, you don't need extra universes to explain QM, you just need to finish your intro semester.

If you say so, but multiple universe are only part of the Many Worlds Interpretation (and one other that I can't recall), so Woit is of the MW camp, kind of. The problem there is that the MW are congruent, rather than parallel, so they can't collide.

Never mind, I forgot the content of the video that started this thread.
 
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RDArmstrong

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Very interesting.

I don't know enough about this stuff but I like to imagine that if there were other universes then a collision between them would follow similarly to two atoms colliding in space.