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Written by j_bertolotti on 2025-01-13 at 14:19

[#]PhysicsFactlet

Do you want an interpretation of quantum mechanics that doesn't really work that well in practice, but that would look fantastic for your Sci-Fi novel? I have for you "Many interacting words" (not to be confused with the similarly named "Many worlds interpretation").

In this interpretation the universe is 100% classical, but instead of being one universe there is a VERY large number of them, all classical and weakly interacting with each other. In particular each particle is classical, but is repelled by its "copies" in the other universes. This is able to replicate a lot of the most weird effects of quantum mechanics. For instance, classically a particle is not able to overcome a potential barrier if it doesn't have enough energy to do so, but in this interpretation the particle would be repelled by its copies, so it has a non-zero chance of getting enough of a kick to jump on the other side of the barrier, producing the phenomenon we usually call "quantum tunnelling".

Another effect replicated by this model is the "zero point energy" i.e. the fact that the lowest energy a particle can have is not zero, but a bit higher than that. In this interpretation this comes to be because the particle (which is classic) would like to sit at zero energy, but so do all of its "copies", and they repel, so none of them can really sit at zero energy.

If you want, in this interpretation the very fact we see quantum effects is evidence of parallel universes!

https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041013

[#]Physics #QuantumMechanics

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Written by Chris on 2025-01-13 at 17:14

@j_bertolotti And the electron doesn't go through both slits--it goes through one in this universe but interacts with the copies that go through the other slit in the other universe.

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