The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family

by Peter Byrne

  Dr. George B. Wesley for research assistance and comments on early drafts.

  Thank you to physicists:

  I first learned about Everett’s existence from Stephen H. Shenker, who gave me moral support and solid advice during the several years it took to produce this book. Kenneth Ford gave unstintingly of his experience and knowledge and read draft chapters, kindly pointing out errors and making oodles of helpful suggestions. Wojciech H. Zurek and H. Dieter Zeh not only commented on draft chapters, but they painstakingly explained decoherence to me in lay terms. Additional physics pedagogy was received from James B. Hartle, Leonard Susskind, Max Tegmark, Matt Bellis, Don Eigler, David Briggs, Charles Misner. Any errors are purely mine.

  Philosophers of science:

  Simon Saunders of Oxford University’s faculty of philosophy invited me to Oxford, twice, to learn about Everettian quantum mechanics, and we had scores of conversations by email; he also reviewed several draft chapters. Jeffery A. Barrett of University of California, Irvine patiently explained elementary concepts in quantum physics to me and made many helpful comments on the draft book. David Wallace reviewed several chapters and was generous with his conversational time. Harvey Brown made several pithy remarks that illuminated the way. Sean Boocock reviewed the chapters on Bohr and the measurement problem and made many helpful remarks. Arthur Fine honored me with two very informative discussions about the measurement problem. Olival Freire, Stefan Osnaghi, and Fabio Freitas provided primary source material on the “Everettian heresy.” Jim Baggott commented on several draft chapters.

  Others:

  Many thanks to Gary Lucas for long talks about Everett’s personal and professional lives and for explaining Generalized Lagrange Multipliers. Donald Reisler for in-depth conversations about his years as Everett’s friend and colleague. Charles and Susanne Misner for personal recollections. Misner for comments on draft chapters and writing a foreword. George E. Pugh for his memoir of Everett on file at the American Institute of Physics. Eugene Shikhovtsev of Kostromo, Russia for being the first biographer to tackle Everett: he inspired me and generously offered access to his source materials.

  Gregg Herken looked over rough drafts of the Cold War chapters and made useful remarks. Finn Aaserud and Anja Skaar Jacobsen provided historical materials, as did Cecile DeWitt-Morette. Conversations with Harold W. Kuhn greatly informed the game theory chapters. Eugen Merzbacher told me about the existence of the Xavier transcript. Joanna Frawley provided information and read draft chapters on weapons systems research. I learned a lot from attending the Everett@50 conference at Oxford University and the Everett conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics which were packed with wonderful speakers. Useful talks were also had with Shelly Goldstein, Adrian Kent, Wayne Myrvold, Hilary Carteret, Leon N Cooper, Leon Lasden, Paul Davies, Laura Mersini-Houghton and every one of the dozens of people interviewed for this book (named in the bibliography). Thanks to non-academic friends who made useful comments on early drafts: Deborah Hayden, Debbie Hupp, Patrice Gelband, John Morganthaler.

  Special thanks to Spencer Weart, Martha and Chris Holler, Matt Isaacs. Also Everett’s cousins: Robert Everett, Jean Everett, Edward Everett, and Jim Everett; Everett’s high school friends, Ralph Mohr and Fred Wilson; Everett’s colleagues Jan Lodal, Ivan Selin, Charles Rossotti, Ken Willis, Tom Green, Elaine Tsiang, Paul Flanagan.

  Very special thanks to Sonke Adlung and April Warman of Oxford University Press.

  I am indebted to the editors of Scientific American for commissioning a magazine profile on Everett in 2007, and to Louise Lockwood and the British Broadcasting Corporation for including me in the making of Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, and for WGBH NOVA for allowing me to help create a great Website to accompany the award-winning film.

  Grant funding to support this project was provided by the American Institute of Physics and the Foundational Questions Institute. Grant funding to support an anthology of Everett’s papers (to be published by Princeton University Press, edited by Jeffrey A. Barrett and Byrne) was provided by the National Science Foundation. That grant also supports the creation of a public Web site to hold Everett’s scientific papers and related biographical materials.

  Thanks to: Scheffel Music Corp for permission to quote from the song Stranger in Paradise by George Forrest and Robert Craig Wright; Tom Lehrer for permission to quote from his song Wernher von Braun. Grove Press for permission to quote from “The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges. Henry Holt & Company for permission to quote from Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society. Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. for permission to quote from The Coming of the Quantum Cats by Frederick Pohl.

  Photographs are courtesy of Mark Everett, Emilio Segre Visual Archives, Macmillan Publishing Ltd., Press Association Images, Donald Reisler.

  Finally, my parents, Jeb and Beverly Byrne: both writers.

  Bibliography

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