Hugh Everett III Created 2026-10-24 Updated 2026-11-05
Hugh Everett III proposed treating an observer and a measured quantum system within one unitary quantum dynamics. For an ideal quantum measurement, evolves into : the apparatus records become correlated with the alternatives. A relative state describes the measured quantum system conditional on a particular record, while the joint quantum state remains entangled. His 1957 formulation sought to account for records within this common dynamics, without adding a separate dynamical wave function collapse postulate.[ref]
Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics by Hugh Everett III. Discussion of measurement correlations and relative states
A physicist who proposed a unitary relative-state account of quantum measurement, developed in the many-worlds interpretation.
Hugh Everett III in 1964; Hugh Everett III papers, University of California, Irvine; photographer unrecorded in the Wikimedia file record; non-free historical portrait hosted by English Wikipedia
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