According to quantum theory, radioactive atoms emit photons randomly, and every physical event is the same because quantum waves predict the possibilities but what actually happens is a choice. This idea, that every physical event is a choice, contradicts Newton’s idea of a mechanical universe driven by physical laws, where each event causes the next.
Randomness was seen 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 any photon is measured say spin up, another universe spawns in which it is spin down. Nothing is now random, because everything quantum theory says could happen actually does happen, somewhere, in what is now called the multiverse. Many-worlds theory then replaces Newton’s clockwork universe, which quantum theory destroyed a century ago, 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. Letting any photon create a new universe is preferred to randomness but with an estimated 4×1084 photons in our 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.
For a scientist, this 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, to avoid randomness, 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 purpose seems to be to support the idea that physical events cause everything.
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? Does nature, like a doting parent with a camera, record everything that our universe might do?
Swapping a mechanical universe for a mechanical multiverse makes physicists feel good but fairy tales aren’t good science (Baggot, 2013) while quantum theory, which is good science, is called 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”.