Hugh Everett

Hugh Everett III (1930-1982) [born in Washington, DC] did his undergraduate study in chemical engineering at the Catholic University of America. Studying von Neumann's and Bohm's textbooks as part of his graduate studies, under Wheeler, in mathematical physics at Princeton University in the 1950s he became dissatisfied (like many others before and since) with the collapse of the wavefunction. He developed, during discussions with Charles Misner and Aage Peterson (Bohr' assistant, then visiting Princeton), his "relative state" formulation. Wheeler encouraged his work and preprints were circulated in January 1956 to a number of physicists. A condensed version of his thesis was published as a paper to The Role of Gravity in Physics conference held at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in January 1957.

Everett was discouraged by the lack of response from others, particularly Bohr, whom he flew to Copenhagen to meet but got the complete brush-off from. Leaving physics after completing his Ph.D., Everett worked as a defense analyst at the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, Pentagon and later became a private contractor, apparently quite successfully for he became a multimillionaire. In 1968 Everett worked for the Lambda Corp. His published papers during this period cover things like optimising resource allocation and, in particular, maximising kill rates during nuclear-weapon campaigns.

From 1968 onwards, Bryce S. DeWitt, one of the 1957 Chapel Hill conference organisers, but better known as one of the founders of quantum gravity, successfully popularised Everett's relative state formulation as the "many-worlds interpretation" in a series of articles.

Sometime in 1976-9 Everett visited Austin, Texas, at Wheeler or DeWitt's invitation, to give some lectures on QM. The strict no-smoking rule in the auditorium was relaxed for Everett (a chain smoker); the only exception ever. Everett, apparently, had a very intense manner, speaking acutely and anticipating questions after a few words. Oh yes, a bit of trivia, he drove a Cadillac with horns.

With the steady growth of interest in many-worlds in the late 1970s Everett planned returning to physics to do more work on measurement in quantum theory, but died of a heart attack in 1982. [Survived by his son.]

[Everett's many-worlds theory supports the "super-string" or "string" theory that has been presented in the past decade as a unifying theory of physics. As with Everett's theory, the string theory takes gravity into account as a universal source, and seeks to explain its role alongside the other forces in the universe. Interested readers may seek information on such topics as super-string theory, grand unification theory, quantum physics and multiple dimensions.]

All material, except bracketed edits, from "The Everett FAQ" http://www.hedweb.com/everett/everett.htm by Michael Clive Price used with site's stated permission. For additional information about Everett's many-worlds theory, please see source site.