The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics

by Heinrich Päs

the fundamental single quantum universe not only alleviates the purported problem of Everett’s interpretation featuring a “heavy load of metaphysical baggage” (as Wheeler complained) but totally invalidates this criticism as such a fundamental reality isn’t only a single universe but a single unique entity comprising matter, space, and time as well as all potentially possible events and situations. Not only is there just a single world, but this single world is all there is! Little known as it is, this consequence of his theory may turn out to be Everett’s paramount legacy. As Wojciech Zurek affirmed, “It was Everett who gave us the permission to think about the universe as wholly quantum mechanical.”