Hugh Everett III: Many Worlds of Mathematics
Hugh Everett III is known for his “Many Worlds” interpretation of quantum theory,
which is now taken seriously by many physicists. But his career as a mathematician
is an illuminating example of how mathematicians worked in the defence industry in
the United States during the Cold War. Everett was a pioneer of operations research
and worked both for the US government and for his own consultancy companies.
Everett‘s first degree was in chemical engineering, but he had also taken enough
mathematics courses to qualify for a maths degree. He went on to Princeton for
graduate study, initially in game theory, but switched to quantum theory, supervised
by John Wheeler. His interpretation of wave mechanics – now known as the Many
Worlds Theory, and based on rigorous mathematics – was the subject of his PhD.
Everett’s suggestion was that, rather than the wavefunction collapse when an
observation is made, the universal wavefunction branches into all possible futures,
although we only experience one branch of the wavefunction. Everett’s ideas were
not liked by Niels Bohr, who had enormous influence in the field at the time: indeed
one of Bohr’s associates described Everett as “undescribably stupid”. Wheeler
persuaded Everett to tone down his PhD thesis to avoid controversy, and a paper
describing some of his work was published in 1957 but attracted little attention.
Discouraged by the reception of his work, Everett abandoned quantum theory.
Everett now worked for the Pentagon’s Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, where
by 1957 he was Director of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Like many
mathematicians working in the defence industry, much of his work was secret, and
some remains so. We know that some of his work involved using game theory to
optimise the targeting of nuclear weapons – how to assure mutual destruction as a
deterrent to the Cold War threat of Soviet nuclear attack. He also worked on
calculating the effect of radioactive fallout in the event of nuclear war. His
biographer calls him “the quintessential Cold War technocrat”.
Everett’s work was now in the field of Operations Research, and he introduced new
ideas involving the use of generalised Lagrange multipliers in optimisation. The use
of computers permitted new methods and Everett was a pioneer in this area. In 1964
he set up a private consultancy company Lambda which did mathematical modelling
work for the military, and subsequently established other consultancy companies.
In the 1970s physicists became interested in Everett’s interpretation of quantum
physics. An account of his theory which he had written in 1956 was finally published
in 1973, and when he gave an influential talk at a conference in 1977 there was great
interest in his ideas. His work is now widely known, and the Many Worlds
interpretation been taken up in popular culture.
In 1982, Everett, who was a heavy smoker and drinker, died suddenly at the age of
fifty-one of a heart attack. There is a recent biography by Peter Byrne, called The
Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction,
and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family.
Everett’s is an interesting example of a late twentieth-century mathematical career for
a number of reasons. First, although his ideas in quantum theory are now seen as
important, at the time they were rejected and so, following his PhD, he moved into a
completely different field of mathematics. Secondly, like many mathematicians of
this and any other time, much of his work was for the military: quite literally, working
out the best way to kill people. Thirdly, his private consultancy companies show
another increasingly possible career route in mathematics.
While Everett’s Many-Worlds interpretation of the quantum wavefunction has had a
profound influence, not only on science but also on popular culture. While few young
mathematicians’ PhD theses will turn out to be so influential, many will face similar
decisions in forging a career in mathematics today.
Sources
Peter Byrne, The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, mutual
assured destruction, and the meltdown of a nuclear family (Oxford University Press,
2010)
Tony Mann, 2012
This resource was created for the project "Being a Professional Mathematician", supported
by the MSOR Network, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the Universities
of Greenwich and Birmingham as part of the National HE STEM Programme. It is released
under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence