The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics with Dr. Sean Carroll

The Frontiers of Physics Lecture Series brings renowned scientists to the UW to offer free lectures on exciting advances in physics with the goal of fostering an appreciation of science and technology in our community.

This October 9th, we’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Sean Carroll, and we hope you’ll mark your calendars for the lecture. Dr. Carroll will explore why the theory of quantum mechanics – one of the great intellectual achievements of the twentieth century – remains a source of mystery for most physicists.

Dr. Carroll will discuss the source of this puzzlement and explain why an increasing number of physicists are led to an apparently astonishing conclusion: that the world we experience is constantly branching into different versions, representing the different possible outcome of quantum measurements. This could have important consequences for quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime.

[calmeilles]

The problem with the superposition of awake and asleep cat is that 90% of the time cat will be a sleep anyway, destroying the probability calculations. :)

[bhbluebird]

I never get tired of listening to sean

[Lance_Lough]

Well, this is trivial and petty...but Sean Carroll so rarely says anything wrong. —It was Athena who was born from the brow of Zeus, not Venus..

[danielgregg]

Another great talk by this prof. Where has he been all my life cutting thru the detail and getting to the point.

[hegerwalter]

51:47 It would be interesting for some of us to see that version of the manuscript with those details written out that the editor scrapped. Face it, the reader of your book is not going to shy away from your explanation. I want to read what you have to say, not what your editor thinks that I should read.

[camspiers]

The final questioner nailed it, what a perfect last question, showed a lot of awareness or the event, Carroll and the room to give give an opportunity to give a summarizing thought.

[tamasmihaly]

I love Sean Carrol, but this needs to be said. If you want to meet some of the most pretentious people (students and faculty) in the Western fucking hemisphere, look no further than UW Seattle. Situated in the landmark of sociological failures *The beautiful and "Diverse" U District; where you can risk getting mugged or infected on any corner you chose. They don't jail the homeless and the insane here. That is inhumane. Instead they ignore them. The irony of the UW School of Social Work students pompously parading themselves on the sidewalk next to the junkies and madmen whom that they pretend to care for but instead blithely ignore is better than all the validation of the world. I'm not a fan.

[Walker-lddn]

is a great explainer of difficult subjects. A very, very nice job for non-scientists like me. Thank you, Sean,

[blacked]

*I just wanted to know whether the unentangling of the electron in delayed choice quantum eraser experiment involved actually putting energy to the experiment? as Sean said unentangling or breaking entanglement involves putting energy in there??*

[Stadtpark]

The only thing I find intuitive is, that the possibilities get less over time, as the branching progresses. It seems to have an inherent arrow of time.

[uneedtherapy]

what I don't get is that like Sean says if there is different "vocubulary" at the microscopic and macroscopic levels then how are any of those "levels" related? Wouldn't the Micro ALWAYS influence the macro? Things work on the macro because all the tiny little things happen on the micro right? Things don't happen on the macro just because they want to but by what has already happened on the micro right? Maybe I am not understanding this right? Wouldn't it always be a direct chain from Micro----> Macro? Perhaps free will is just the "belief" that life is different on the macro? Hasn't everything that has ever happened in the history of reality happened because it happened at the Micro first?

[Gringohuevon]

Every time he talks about reality my heart sinks...

[DanielRetureau]

I like his presentations. He his a good teacher, clear even if his prononciation is sometimes funny like "équaygions" or equeyzons"; nice, a bit like Jimmy Kimmel. I like his humour too. It is rare to laugh during a talk on theoretical physics... Thank you for this great conference.

[ryanrobin]

Condolences to Dr ANN NELSON’s friends and family

[doughiggins]

How many world are created in one breath or one jump? Using quantum probabilities here, eh? An infinite number of worlds?

Two suggestions: In Newtonian physics, all calculations are always rough approximations. They will never yield a precise answer....measurement issues. Where precisely is the center of an objects mass. Think about it.
Your view of quantum states or splits....Invites the problem of infinities. As I suggested at the start.

[souldreamer]

Excellent talk. He should write a book.

[mikeprice]

@17:32 Dr Carol is incorrect.... It was Athena

[Dan.]

This isn't science, it's religion. This stuff makes a Voodoo priest look sensible.

[johnmcntsh]

I wish everyone would stop using "Many Worlds Theory" . It is the Many Worlds Interpretation.

[goldibollocks]

At the point where the wave function branches into the two worlds (one where I saw the cat asleep and one where I saw it awake), how is it decided in which of the two branches my continuous consciousness ends up in?