The many-worlds interpretation tackles one of physics’ hardest puzzles — why quantum objects seem to stop behaving like waves when they are measured — by arguing that they never stop at all: every possible outcome happens, but we only experience the branch we end up in.

The many-worlds interpretation begins with a refusal to add a special rule for measurement. That is its appeal, and also the source of its strangeness. In ordinary quantum mechanics, an electron, atom or photon can be described by a wavefunction that contains several possible outcomes at once. When a measurement is made, we see one [...] The post The many-worlds interpretation tackles one of physics’ hardest puzzles — why quantum objects seem to stop behaving like waves when they are measured —