Everett Papers Archive and Commentary

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。量子力学标准公式中遇到的量子测量问题是由薛定谔方程表征的确定性动力学和仅在测量过程中获得的随机坍缩动力学不兼容造成的。休·埃弗雷特三世（Hugh Everett III）提出了一个著名的解决测量问题的方法，即简单地从标准理论中删除坍缩动力学。然后他相信，标准理论的经验预言可以作为观察者的主观经验而被重新捕获，这些观察者本身也在理论中被对待。埃弗雷特称之为量子力学的相对态表述，也更通俗地称为多世界解释。埃弗雷特的提议对物理学家如何思考量子力学产生了深远的影响，但事实证明，很难确定如何最好地理解埃弗雷特的提议。这在一定程度上是由于埃弗雷特只发表了三部关于这个主题的短篇作品：他的普林斯顿博士学位。论文，与论文基本相同的研究论文，以及论文的较早和较长版本。然而，新的原始材料被发现了。除了提供早期工作的草稿，这些材料表明，埃弗雷特继续思考量子力学的基础和解释后，他发表了关于这个问题很久。调查人员将对这些材料进行分类、编目、存档，并将其以物理学家、历史学家、哲学家和物理学学生容易获得的形式放置。该研究的三个主要产品将是（1）原始源材料的分类收集，（2）包含与埃弗雷特对量子力学的解释相关的所有材料的扫描的一般在线档案，以及（3）对埃弗雷特在量子力学基础上的工作最显着的材料的编辑收集，以及广泛的传记和概念注释和评论。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The quantum measurement problem encountered in the standard formulation of quantum mechanics results from the incompatibility of the deterministic dynamics characterized by Schrodinger's equation and the stochastic collapse dynamics that obtains only during measurement. Hugh Everett III famously proposed solving the measurement problem by simply dropping the collapse dynamics from the standard theory. He then believed that the empirical predictions of the standard theory might be recaptured as the subjective experiences of observers who are themselves treated within the theory. Everett called this the relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics, also, more popularly, known as the many-worlds interpretation. Everett's proposal has been deeply influential in how physicists have thought about quantum mechanics, but it has proven difficult to determine how best to understand Everett's proposal. This is due, in part, to the fact that Everett only published three short works on the subject: his Princeton Ph.D. thesis, a research paper that is essentially identical to the thesis, and an earlier and longer version of the thesis. New primary material, however, has been discovered. In addition to providing drafts of earlier work, this material indicates that Everett continued to think about the foundations and interpretation of quantum mechanics long after he published on the subject. The investigators will sort, catalog, archive, and put this material in a form that is easily accessible to physicists, historians, philosophers, and students of physics. The three main products of the research will be (1) a sorted collection of original source material, (2) a general online archive containing scans of all of the material relevant to Everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics, and (3) a bound edited collection of the material most salient to Everett's work on the foundations of quantum mechanics with extensive biographical and conceptual notes and commentary.