Steuard

Hi, Sean! In discussing your recent work with Boddy and Pollack on quantum fluctuations, you made a point of emphasizing that the methods and conclusions rely on the Everett "many worlds" formulation of quantum mechanics. I was always raised to believe that the various formulations were essentially indistinguishable in their predictions for actual experiments. Can you talk about that a bit?

I am indeed the Steuard you know. :) And I feel the same way about Copenhagen: Bob Geroch's graduate QM class marked the first time I became comfortable with the subject, and his approach was highly mathematical but pretty thoroughly Everett-based under the surface (without any reference to Copenhagen).

But I guess that's the thing that surprises me here. The operator math that Bob G. taught was very obviously consistent with Everett. So, are the other well-defined formulations of QM not correctly described by that operator math? What are the key differences? (And what would be an example of those distinguishable predictions?)

Edit: Finally read the relevant section of your paper. I think I need to just sit down and think about this stuff a bit (and learn something about dynamical collapse theory). Are there experiments planned to test these distinctions?

Oh, and as an aside, I used your "The Laws Underlying the Physics of Everyday Life are Completely Understood" blog posts as the basis for a fun conversation with the students in my college's interdisciplinary honors program this past year. I'm always delighted by the degree to which broad audiences can feel engaged by conversations about fundamental science like that. So you have any thoughts on what we can do to foster more conversations along those lines with the public at large?