According to quantum theory, radioactive atoms emit photons randomly, and they do. Quantum waves predict the possibilities of every physical event, but not which one actually happens. Yet that every physical event has a random element contradicted the idea that our universe is a machine driven by inevitable 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 if every quantum possibility actually happens somewhere, in what we now call 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 the Copenhagen view (Tegmark & Wheeler, 2001, p6) because it denies randomness. But if every event of the estimated 4×1084 photons in our universe creates 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, a billion, billion universes arose from the light that hit your eyes? Current physics does, but 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 seems to be to deny 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 camera, recording everything our universe might do? The mechanical multiverse, like the mechanical universe, appeals to physicists, but fairy tales aren’t good science (Baggot, 2013), nor is calling the good science of quantum theory a fairy tale!
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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”.