Biography:Hugh Everett III



Hugh Everett III
Born	11 November 1930 Washington, D.C., U.S.
Died	19 July 1982 McLean, Virginia, U.S.
Known for	Relative-state formulation; many-worlds interpretation

Hugh Everett III (11 November 1930 - 19 July 1982) was an American physicist best known for the relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics, later widely associated with the many-worlds interpretation. His work offered a way to treat measurement without adding a special collapse postulate to the ordinary quantum evolution of the wavefunction.

Everett completed his doctoral work at Princeton under John Archibald Wheeler. His interpretation was initially controversial and received limited attention, but it later became one of the major approaches discussed in quantum foundations, cosmology, and quantum information.

Relative states

Everett's central idea was that the total wavefunction evolves continuously according to the Schrödinger equation. Instead of a unique collapse outcome, observers become correlated with different branches or relative states of the quantum system.

This approach is closely tied to the measurement problem, decoherence, and the question of how classical-looking outcomes arise from quantum dynamics. It remains one of the most discussed interpretations in modern quantum theory.

See also

• Physics:Quantum Interpretations of quantum mechanics
• Physics:Quantum Measurement problem
• Physics:Quantum Decoherence
• Biography:John Archibald Wheeler

References

Source attribution: Biography:Hugh Everett III