From: Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Date: Tue Dec 08 1998 - 09:41:47 MST
Mike Lorrey asks whether the many-worlds interpretation of quantum
mechanics would violate conservation of mass (and energy), since new
worlds are being "created" all the time.
The short answer is no, because that's not how conservation of mass
is defined. In quantum terms, conservation laws apply to the wave
function, and in many-worlds, there is only one wave function which
describes the "multiverse". What happens is that the wave function
can be interpreted mathematically as having multiple components, all of
which behave independently of each other, and which look like worlds to
the self-aware mathematical structures (us) which they include.
"Creating" a new world actually involves the wave function evolving
to a state where there is additional mathematical structure, such that
more components of the function can be identified which don't interfere
with other components. This looks, to the inhabitants, like splitting
of the world so that there are now two worlds which don't interact.
But mathematically it is just a matter of evolving a more complex wave
function which describes the global universe of all the worlds, and
there are no violations of conservation laws.
Hal
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