Text / Hugh Everett letter to Bryce S. DeWitt, 31-May-1957

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Title: Hugh Everett letter to Bryce S. DeWitt, 31-May-1957
Creator: Everett, Hugh
Date Created and/or Issued: 1957-05-31
Contributing Institution: UC Irvine, Libraries, Special Collections
Collection: Hugh Everett III Manuscripts
Rights Information: Copyrighted
This material is provided for private study, scholarship, or research. Transmission or reproduction of any material protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. The authors or their heirs retain their copyrights to the material. Unless otherwise indicated, the original files were donated to the American Institute of Physics (https://history.aip.org/ead/20130435.html). For permission to publish, contact Jeffrey A. Barrett, representative for the Everett estate, j.barrett@uci.edu.
Description: Scope/Content: As a close friend and collaborator of Wheeler's, DeWitt was one of the first people to see a draft of the short version of Everett's thesis (he did not read the longer version until much later, as is evidenced by some of the complaints in this letter). In May 1957, DeWitt wrote a long and thoughtful letter to Wheeler about how Everett's theory had conceptual parallels with Einstein's theory of general relativity. At the end of that month, Everett sent his reply. This document is a copy of the letter that Everett sent. In response to DeWitt's insistence that he has direct introspective evidence that he does not split, Everett draws an analogy with anti-Copernicans, who argued that they had direct evidence that the world did not move. Based on much later remarks, it seems that DeWitt was convinced by Everett's rejoinder.
Scope/Content: This document was found in the basement of Mark Everett in 2008 by Mark Everett and Peter Byrne.
Type: text
Identifier: ark:/81235/d8bc3t979
http://hdl.handle.net/10575/1132
Language: English
eng
Subject: Quantum mechanics
Quantum measurement problem
Pure wave mechanics
Relative states, branches, and worlds
Philosophy of science
Correspondence
DeWitt, Bryce S.
Everett, Hugh III
Relation: Hugh Everett III Correspondence

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