archived as http://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/MWI_05.pdf more of the this topic at http://www.stealthskater.com/Science.htm#MWI note: because important websites are frequently "here today but gone tomorrow", the following was archived from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3513_manyworlds.html on October 29, 2008. This is NOT an attempt to divert readers from the aforementioned web-site. Indeed, the reader should only read this back-up copy if the updated original cannot be found at the original author's site. Parallel Worlds / Parallel Lives an interview with Mark Everett on his famous father Hugh Everett PBS/NOVA , October 21, 2008 [Mark Oliver Everett]: Hello. Nice to see you. [Narrator]: Mark Oliver Everett -- known to his friends as 'E' -- is the creative force behind the "Eels" - an alternative rock band... [Everett]: {Singing} there's nothing that i wanna do … [Narrator]:... whose songs have earned a shelf full of music awards and even popped up in the Shrek movies. [Everett]: {Singing} trouble with dreams is they don't come true. And when they do. they can't catch up to you … [Narrator]: But many of Mark's fans don't know that his father Hugh Everett is also a cult figure in the world of Physics for pioneering the strange theory of parallel universes. Hugh Everett proposed a multitude of universes -- each a home to an alternate reality including alternate versions of you and me. It may sound crazy. But the theory of parallel universes is now considered serious science. And Hugh Everett is -- to some -- an icon. But to his son Mark, he has always been an enigma. [Everett]: I don't remember knowing when he was alive that he was, like, a famous physicist. I don't know if I ever even knew that until after he'd died. Dad, Mom, can you hear me? Here's my mom. This is the one. I've never seen it before. Oh, there's one for my sister, too. I've never seen that. Wait … where's the … where's my father's stone? I just don't get it. It's a mystery. [Narrator]: Mark's father was a distracted genius lost in his own world. They lived in the same house for 20 years. Yet they barely spoke. For Mark, one of their most memorable encounters came in July, 1982. 1 [Everett]: It was the weirdest thing because I walked in their bedroom and there he was, laying there, like sideways on the bed, fully clothed, with his tie on, like he always had on, you know. I tried to wake him up. When I put my arms under him and picked him up, his body was completely stiff. And it was just so surreal because I was touching him which was the only time I could remember having any physical contact with him. Yeah, and it was just so also so, obviously, it was, you know, very traumatic and a horrific scene. But it was also... had the added surreal quality for me because, you know, my father had just died. But I, you know, I barely knew him. So it was hard to know how to feel like a normal person would feel in that situation. So I guess it's pretty sad that I had, you know...the one really intimate experience I had with him was while he was dead, you know. {Singing}): i don't leave the house much i don't like being around people it's better for me to stay home some might think it means i hate people but that's not quite right [Narrator]: Mark fiercely guards his privacy. But now he's decided to take a journey to try to understand his father and the bizarre theory he dreamed up. [Everett]: I'm going to go on this trip because it's something that I knew was coming, eventually. I didn't want to wait too long either, you know, with my family history, the longevity rate there. Well, you have to have a sense of humor. You know, that came from my family. That was the way we communicated. Like nobody said, "I love you" or anything like that. It was more … it was a very kind of jokey, sarcastic family. And that was how we communicated, you know. Oh, what do we got here? This is Bobby's room. I mean how many dogs get their own room? He's the most spoiled dog in Los Feliz. Maybe in the World. [Narrator]: Understanding how his father came up with the idea of parallel universes is going to be tricky because science was never Mark's strong point. [Everett]: I only have a very, very vague understanding of my father's theory. It gets up to a certain point and it becomes, like, impenetrable. And then it gets into the scientist language which is like "Blah, blah, blah, blah." It's like a different alphabet they're using, practically. [Narrator]: Hugh Everett's theory was so bold that it set him on a collision course with the most brilliant minds of the physics world. Taken to the extreme, parallel universes would mean that with every event that could happen in more ways than one, universes branch off in different directions. That means that moment-to-moment, we divide into multiple versions of ourselves. 2 Applying the theory to Mark, he splits in two at the very moment he decides to go on his trip. In another parallel universe, a version of himself stays at home in L.A.. While in this universe, Mark sets off. [Everett]: {Singing}blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees set me on the ground once more again [Narrator]: Like his father, Mark grew up just outside Washington, D.C. Still living in the area is physicist Don Reisler -- a work colleague and friend of his father's. [Don Reisler]: Hello, Mark! [Everett]: You dressed for me? [Reisler]: Absolutely! Who could turn down this opportunity? I mean, how often does a rock star come to my house? [Everett]: It's good to see you. My goodness! [Reisler]: Hey, it's delightful to see you. [Everett]: How long has it been? 25 years? [Reisler]: 25 years. [Everett]: Wow! [Reisler]: You are now so old that you are the age I was when you last saw me. [Everett]: Really? Wow! You guys are always doing the math. [Reisler]: Always doing strange stuff, yeah. So, come in and be comfortable. Bathroom is there if you need. Fluids here. We can sit down. [Everett]: Great. When did you first meet my father? [Reisler]: 1970. It was a job interview. And he very timidly -- I know that's not what you think of -- but very, very timidly said, "Have you, by any chance, seen my paper on Quantum Mechanics?" [Everett]: Mmm … that day? [Reisler]: That day, yeah. And I said, "Oh my god, you're that Hugh Everett?" Because I had seen it and thought it was the work of a raving lunatic. And told him! [Everett]: You said that? [Reisler]: And he thought it was funny. And so we knew we could enjoy each other. 3 [Everett]: Wow. Even though he was a constant physical presence, he is really a complete mystery -- as a person -- to me. What was he like? You know, that's what I don't really know. [Reisler]: He was peculiar and a bit eccentric. He was a very good friend to me, in his way. Yeah, I will show you something -- that friendship and contrast. You have here... [Everett]: Wow, he is outside. [Reisler]: This would have been late '70s. [Everett]: That's basically what he was wearing every day and every night at the dining room table, as well, that was his uniform. The only thing you guys have in common is facial hair. [Reisler]: Yeah. [Everett]: And otherwise, you look like completely different, you know... [Reisler]: Species. [Everett]: Like city guy and mountain guy. [Reisler]: And yet we were really good friends. [Narrator]: Don is an expert in Quantum Mechanics -- the laws that govern the tiniest particles. To start Mark out nice and easy, all Don needs is a pencil. [Reisler]: If I take a pencil and cut it in half and cut it in half and cut it in half and just get ever, ever smaller pieces, at some point I may run out of something I can cut in half. You've gotten to the point where the pencil no longer can be subdivided. You've come to something that's no longer bits of a pencil but is something more fundamental. And that was the notion of an atom. [Narrator]: Atoms are the buildings blocks of the Universe -- tiny particles that make up everything we see around us from houses and guitars to rock musicians. They're so small that there are more atoms in a period than there are pencils in the whole World. If you could somehow look inside one of these atoms, you might see what it's made of. In the middle is a concentrated ball of material called the nucleus. Around the nucleus are tiny particles called electrons. These electrons spin super-quick around the nucleus. Now -- this is the crazy part -- the Classical laws of physics seem to work fine for everything much bigger than an atom. For instance, Newton's gravity makes apples go down rather than up. And at an intuitive level, these classical laws make perfect sense. But when it comes to really tiny stuff like atoms, the Classical laws break down.