Why Parallel Universes?

I have one big problem with this interpretation of quantum mechanics.
If we carry out the two slit experiment, and the universe splits into a left-slit universe and a right-slit universe, then after a million two-slit experiments, there will be one universe of the 2-to-the-power-1000000 universes where the electron chose the left slit every time.To put it in more every-day terms, there has to be a universe where every penny that was ever tossed landed heads, and statistics just doesn't exist.I don't believe it!Mike.

O)K. I admit my gut feels have a dissonance with my logic. As correctly stated, somewhere in an infinite universe all penny-tosses have resulted in heads. And the next toss? Of course it will also land heads (in one of the resulting universes).Also, in an infinite universe, there are an infinity of 'me's sitting at PCs typing this response.I think I will stick with my gut feel. I don't believe it.But thanks for the responses.Mike.

Thanks for the tip, Darth, but I am an old codger of 66, happily married for 40 years, so I won't be looking for any dates in the near future.
Hope you enjoy your next date in the majority of universes.
Mike.

Why are all the examples based on binary events - the electron going through one slit or the other? The quantum probability 'waves' are continuous, giving an infinite number of possible outcomes.To use a different example, imagine a radioactive atom and a detector set up so when the atom decays, a hammer will hit me on the head. So after one second, a universe splits off in which I have just been hit. After 2 seconds another splits off as the atom in that one decays, etc. Similarly for any time in-between. So one probability event produces an infinity of universes.But going back to the traditional two-slit experiment, if the electron goes through one slit in one universe, and through the other in another universe, then neither universe would see the interference pattern. To get an interference pattern, all the probabilities (the whole quantum field) must exist in the one universe AFTER the field has passed through the slits. Does the universe split only after the electron has been absorbed by the film, or only when the experimenter has developed the film and looks at it?I think I will stick with Newton!Mike.This message has been edited by Mike Holland, 08-27-2004 07:11 PM

Thank you, PE. I started reading that article on decoherence, then decided to print it out (15 pages). Hate reading these things on the terminal. Get back later.
Mike.

PE, this is in response to the reference you sent me.I have at last managed to wade through ‘The Role of Decoherence in Quantum Theory’. Did you post this as a joke? It reads like an essay in Post-Modernism. I have never heard the term ’Decoherence’ before, but it sounds like things falling apart, with the inevitable result of ’Incoherence’. My spell-checker doesn’t like it either. I suggest you choose references from an Encyclopaedia of Science rather than an Encyclopaedia of Philosophy! I checked it all out in my 'Feynman Lectures', published in 1961, and it was all there expressed in simple english.Anyway, the article does not say anything that I had not read decades ago, and I could not find any relevance to the multiple-universe interpretation of quantum-field collapse (decoherence?).So, back to the subject of parallel universes splitting from each other.Firstly, I can see two possible processes of ‘splitting’. Either the whole universe splits apart in one go, or the else split initiates in that volume where the collapsing quantum field had a non-zero amplitude, and then propagates over the rest of the universe at the speed of light. This latter process could be likened to spreading two sheets, one on top of the other, and then lifting the top one at its centre. The separation spreads outwards in a circle.In the first case, our local space is being split continuously by ‘quantum collapses’ that occur all over the universe. If the universe is infinite, we have an infinity of splits at every instant.In the second case, we have splits arriving here all the time, from events in distant space and time. For example, an electron being absorbed by a molecule somewhere in a distant galaxy a thousand million years ago! In this case the number of splits may not be quite infinite if the universe has a finite past - but what difference will it make?So what is the point of talking about a quantum collapse event splitting the universe into two (or more) parallel universes when at the same time an infinity of splits take place due to other events?
That bullet goes through your head in an infinity of infinities of universes, and it doesn't go through in another infinity of infinities of universes. Which infinity is greater?Mike.

Thanks PE. Therre was one sentence in the article that I really couldn't take seriously - 'Suppression of interference can be an extremely fast process, depending on the system and the environment considered'. You have to watch closely, or you might miss it!But back to the speed of splitting. Do you imagine it as instantaneous? We perform the classical Schrodinger's cat experiment and open the box to find a dead cat (hope this example doesn't upset you). Then does Ygab on planet WW23W in the Andromeda galaxy immediately become two Ygabs in two separate universes? Even though the probability wave of the cat did not extend that far? You keep using the suicide example, with an action in our immediate present, but I am trying to see the process in relation to quantum events millions of light-years away.Mike.