According to quantum theory, radioactive atoms emit photons randomly, and they do. Quantum waves predict physical event possibilities but what actually happens is random. Yet if every physical event has a random element, our universe isn’t a machine driven by physical laws.
Randomness seemed to undermine the laws of physics, so in 1957 Everett proposed the many-worlds interpretation, that every quantum possibility actually happens in another physical world, so if a photon is measured say spin up, another universe spawns where it is spin down. Nothing is then random because every quantum possibility actually happens somewhere, in what is now called the multiverse. Many-worlds theory in effect replaces the clockwork universe that quantum theory destroyed last century with a clockwork multiverse.
Everett’s idea was initially seen as absurd, as indeed it is, but physicists now prefer it 3:1 over other views (Tegmark & Wheeler, 2001, p6) because it allows a mechanical multiverse. But if every event of the estimated 4×1084 photons in our universe triggers a new universe, it isn’t hard to see that the:
“… universe of universes would be piling up at rates that transcend all concepts of infinitude.” (Walker, 2000), p107.
Many worlds theory doesn’t just offend Occam’s razor, it outrages it. Do you believe that in the time it took to read this sentence, billions of universes arose from the light that hit your eyes? Current physics does, and it isn’t hard to see why. This theory isn’t testable, nor does it predict any new facts, yet it is accepted. To be clear, no facts at all support the multiverse so its only value is that it denies randomness.
An attempt to rescue this zombie theory (Note 1) by letting a finite number of universes repartition after each choice (Deutsch, 1997) just recovers the original problem, as what chooses the worlds to drop? Is nature, like a doting parent with a quantum camera that records everything our universe might do? The mechanical multiverse, like the mechanical universe, appeals to physicists, but fairy tales aren’t scientific (Baggot, 2013), nor is calling quantum theory a fairy tale good science!
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Note 1. Zombie theories make no new predictions and can’t be falsified. Like zombies, they have no progeny nor can they be killed by falsification, as they are already scientifically “dead”.