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In 1957, Hugh Everett proposed a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics鈥攁 view that eventually became known as the many-worlds interpretation. This book presents Everett鈥檚 two landmark papers on the idea鈥斺�溾�楻elative State鈥� Formulation of Quantum Mechanics鈥� and 鈥淭he Theory of the Universal Wave Function鈥濃�攁s well as further discussion of the idea in papers from a number of other physicists: J. A. Wheeler, Bryce DeWitt, L. N. Cooper and D. Van Vechten, and Neill Graham.

In his interpretation, Everett denies the existence of a separate classical realm and asserts the propriety of considering a state vector for the whole universe. Because this state vector never collapses, reality as a whole is rigorously deterministic. This reality, which is described jointly by the dynamical variables and the state vector, isn鈥檛 the reality customarily perceived; rather, it鈥檚 a reality composed of many worlds. By virtue of the temporal development of the dynamical variables, the state vector decomposes naturally into orthogonal vectors, reflecting a continual splitting of the universe into a multitude of mutually unobservable but equally real worlds, in each of which every good measurement has yielded a definite result, and in most of which the familiar statistical quantum laws hold.

Bryce S. DeWitt (1923鈥�2004) was a prize-winning theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Neill Graham (1941鈥�2015) was a physicist and writer.