@article{ref1,
title="The interpretation of quantum mechanics: Many worlds or many words?",
journal="Fortschritte der Physik",
year="1998",
author="Tegmark, M.",
volume="46",
number="6-8",
pages="855-862",
abstract="As cutting-edge experiments display ever more extreme forms of non-classical behavior, the prevailing view on the interpretation of quantum mechanics appears to be gradually changing. A (highly unscientific) poll taken at the 1997 UMBC quantum mechanics workshop gave the once all-dominant Copenhagen interpretation less than half of the votes. The Many Worlds interpretation (MWI) scored second, comfortably a head of the Consistent Histories and Bohm interpretations. It is argued that since all the above-mentioned approaches to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics give identical cookbook prescriptions for how to calculate things in practice, practical-minded experimentalists, who have traditionally adopted the &quot;shut-up-and-calculate interpretation&quot;, typically show little interest in whether cozy classical concepts are in fact real in some untestable metaphysical sense or merely the way we subjectively perceive a mathematically simpler world where the Schrödinger equation describes everything - and that they are therefore becoming less bothered by a profusion of worlds than by a profusion of words. Common objections to the MWI are discussed. It is argued that when environment-induced decoherence is taken into account, the experimental predictions of the MWI are identical to those of the Copenhagen interpretation except for an experiment involving a Byzantine form of &quot;quantum suicide&quot;. This makes the choice between them purely a matter of taste, roughly equivalent to whether one believes mathematical language or human language to be more fundamental.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0015-8208",
doi="10.1002/(SICI)1521-3978(199811)46:6/8<855::AID-PROP855<3.0.CO;2-Q",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1521-3978(199811)46:6/8<855::AID-PROP855<3.0.CO;2-Q"
}