Guest Author - Tara Sullivan

The second implication of the Copenhagen interpretation is that reality (in the microworld at least) is observer dependent. An electron is simply in a state of flux ( the wave) until observed, which collapses the wave into a particle, accounting for the physical manifestation of the electron. Schroedinger’s cat exemplifies this view of quantum theory. Schroedinger’s cat is locked in an opaque box with radioactive material that has a fifty percent possibility of shooting a particle upwards and a fifty percent chance of shooting its radioactive decay particle downwards. If it shoots up, it hits a sensor which causes the particle to turn to toxic gas, killing the cat. If it shoots down, the cat’s life is spared.(Zohar, p. 39) So, at any moment there is a 50/50 chance that the cat is alive or dead. The Schroedinger equation predicts that the cat is both alive and dead at the same time, until someone opens the box and observes which state the cat is in in our world. Until observed, the cat is in what is called superposition. Many-worlds interpretation would agree that
Schroedinger’s cat is both alive and dead, only in parallel worlds, only one of which can manifest in the observer’s world.

An important consideration in this conundrum of superposition of cats is what
actually qualifies as an observer. It is very anthropocentric of us humans to believe that only human observation collapses a wave function, or determines what parallel world we live in, for that matter. I believe that in the micro-world, electrons do exist in superposition of parallel worlds, exhibited by the wave form. The wave form is matter-less in the sense that if we could experience all worlds at once we would be moving as fast as the wave function,
we would indeed be light. This is not possible in the macro-world, so only one possibility is experienced.

The many-worlds interpretation, invented by Hugh Everett III in 1957 seemed to
solve the quantum measurement problem by saying that no collapse ever occurs of the wave function, but the particle exists in infinite superpositions simultaneously, but we can only experience one of these worlds, while the others remain hidden. The many worlds interpretation of quantum physics at first thought seems to be sci-fi fantasy, an idea that should exist in the realm of the imagination, but as it turns out many physicists interpret this to be a viable interpretation. The many worlds interpretation simply says that because of the dual nature of the electron, all possibilities simultaneously occur, and as it turns out, this solves many problems for quantum mathematicians. Imagine a wave form in which the electron is not merely a pebble in water creating a disturbance on the surface of a lake, but it is the wave form; the electron manifests as the entire wave. When a particle is isolated, the wave form collapses into one specific physical location; this is the particle. What if when the particle was observed, many slightly different particles were created at every possibility determined by the mathematics of the quantum wave form? The many worlds interpretation says that it does. It would be like if you were playing slot machines, and with one pull of the lever you lost and won at the same time, just in parallel universes.

Continued in Part 3..