Hugh Everett III facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hugh Everett III
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Hugh Everett in 1964
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| Born | November 11, 1930 |
| Died | July 19, 1982 (aged 51) |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | Catholic University of America Princeton University (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | Many-worlds interpretation Everett's theorem |
| Children | Elizabeth Everett, Mark Oliver Everett |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics Operations research Optimization Game theory |
| Institutions | Institute for Defense Analyses American Management Systems Monowave Corporation |
| Doctoral advisor | John Archibald Wheeler |
Hugh Everett III (born November 11, 1930 – died July 19, 1982) was an American physicist. He came up with a big idea called the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics. He first called it his "relative state" idea.
This idea suggests that when something in quantum physics can happen in many ways, it actually happens in all those ways, but in different, separate universes. At the time, most scientists believed in the Copenhagen interpretation, which said that only one outcome happens. Everett's idea was very different because it said that all possible outcomes are real.
Many physicists didn't like his idea at first. Because of this, Everett stopped working in physics after getting his PhD. He then used his math skills to work on operations research and became a consultant for defense projects. He passed away at age 51 in 1982. His son is the musician Mark Oliver Everett.
Even though his idea was mostly ignored for a long time, it became more popular later. This happened after scientists learned about something called quantum decoherence in the 1970s. Today, the Many-Worlds Interpretation is one of the main ways scientists think about quantum mechanics.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Hugh Everett III was born in 1930 and grew up near Washington, D.C.. His parents separated when he was young. He lived with his mother at first, then with his father and stepmother from age seven.
When he was twelve, he wrote a letter to the famous scientist Albert Einstein. He asked Einstein if the universe was kept together by something random or something unifying. Einstein wrote back to him.
Everett earned a scholarship to St. John's College High School in Washington, D.C. After high school, he went to the Catholic University of America. He studied chemical engineering there. He also read about "Dianetics" in a science fiction magazine. While he never became interested in Scientology (which Dianetics later became), he always preferred natural remedies over traditional medicine.
During World War II, his father was a lieutenant colonel fighting in Europe. After the war, his father was stationed in West Germany. Hugh joined him there in 1949, taking a year off from college. Both father and son loved photography. They took many pictures of West Germany as it was being rebuilt. Their photos mostly showed buildings and places, not many people.
Everett finished his degree in chemical engineering from the Catholic University of America in 1953. He had also taken enough courses to earn a mathematics degree.
Studying at Princeton University
Everett received a special scholarship that allowed him to go to Princeton University for graduate school. He started in the math department, working on game theory. Game theory is about how people make decisions when they are competing.
Slowly, he became more interested in physics. In 1953, he began taking his first physics classes. One of these was "Introductory Quantum Mechanics."
In 1954, he took a class called "Methods of Mathematical Physics." He also continued to work on math, presenting a paper about military game theory. In 1955, he passed his exams and earned his master's degree. Then, he started working on his main research project, which would later make him famous.
He changed his main professor to John Archibald Wheeler in 1955. He wrote a few short papers about quantum theory. In April 1956, he finished his long paper called Wave Mechanics Without Probability.
During his third year at Princeton, Everett shared an apartment with three friends. It was at this time that he met Nancy Gore. She helped him by typing his long paper. Everett and Nancy Gore got married the next year. His long paper was later renamed The Theory of the Universal Wave Function.
Professor Wheeler traveled to Copenhagen in May 1956. He hoped to get a good reaction to Everett's work, but it didn't happen. In June 1956, Everett started working for the Pentagon's Weapons Systems Evaluation Group. He briefly returned to Princeton in the spring of 1957 to defend his research. A shorter version of his paper was published in a science journal in July 1957. Everett wasn't completely happy with this shorter version. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1957. His doctoral paper was titled "On the foundations of quantum mechanics."
Career and Later Work
After finishing his studies in September 1956, Everett was invited to join a new group at the Pentagon. This group was called the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG). In October 1956, he took a course to learn about nuclear weapons. He became very interested in using computers to model things. In 1957, he became a director in the WSEG's science department.
After defending his thesis, Everett went back to WSEG. He worked on many projects, including studies about the Minuteman missile. Much of his work there is still secret.
In March and April 1959, Everett visited Copenhagen with his wife and baby daughter. His professor, Wheeler, asked him to go. He wanted Everett to meet Niels Bohr, who was a very important physicist. Bohr was known as the "father of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics."
The visit did not go well. Everett could not explain his main idea clearly. He believed the universe could be described by a "universal wave function" that doesn't "collapse." This idea was completely new and strange to Bohr and his group. They could not understand each other. One of Bohr's followers even said Everett was "stupid" and couldn't understand quantum mechanics. Everett later called the visit "hell."
However, while in Copenhagen, Everett started a new idea. He began working on a way to use math to solve problems in mathematical optimization. This led to "Everett's theorem," which was published in 1963.
In 1962, Everett was asked to give a talk about his "relative-state formulation" at a conference. He explained how probability works in his theory. He also said that observers in all the different "branches" of the universe were equally real. He agreed that the number of branches in the universal wave function was an uncountable infinity.
In August 1964, Everett and some of his colleagues started a company called Lambda Corp. They wanted to use military modeling ideas to solve problems in everyday life. In the early 1970s, less money was spent on defense projects. So, Lambda eventually joined another company.
In 1973, Everett and a colleague started a new company called DBS Corporation. This company did defense research, like helping the United States Navy with ship maintenance. But it also focused on studying how government programs affected society. Everett also worked as a vice president for a business consulting firm.
Everett was good at computer programming from early on. He used computers for most of his work at DBS.
Later Recognition
In 1970, a physicist named Bryce DeWitt wrote an article about Everett's theory. This article made many other physicists write letters about it. These letters and DeWitt's replies were also published. DeWitt then started putting together a book about the many-worlds interpretation.
The book included Everett's original articles and his long 1956 paper, The Theory of the Universal Wavefunction, which had never been published before. The book came out in late 1973 and sold very well. Soon after, an article about Everett's work appeared in a science fiction magazine.
In 1977, Everett was invited to give a talk at a conference. His old professor, Wheeler, organized it. Everett took a vacation from his defense job and traveled with his family. He met DeWitt there for the first and only time. Everett's talk was well-received. It influenced many physicists, including David Deutsch, who later helped make the many-worlds interpretation more widely known.
Everett always believed in his many-worlds theory. He enjoyed giving the presentation because it was the first time in years he had talked about his quantum work in public. Wheeler tried to help Everett return to a physics career, but it didn't work out. Wheeler liked to share Everett's ideas, but he didn't want his own name too closely linked to them. After Everett's death, Wheeler formally said he no longer supported the theory.
Legacy
Everett's son, Mark Oliver Everett, found his father after he passed away. Mark is also known as "E" and is the main singer for the band Eels. The Eels album Electro-Shock Blues was written around this time and reflects on these events.
Mark Everett explored his father's work in a BBC television show called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives. This show was also shown in the USA on the Public Broadcasting Service series Nova in October 2008. In the program, Mark said he didn't know how brilliant and important his father was as a physicist until after his death in 1982.
Images for kids
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Hugh Everett in 1964
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Everett's attendance marked the transition from academia to commercial work.
See also
In Spanish: Hugh Everett para niños
