[I wrote this for my work lunch group after listening to David Wallace on the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics and its implications. It seemed like a good first post here after a long time lurking.]

Shrödinger’s cat is the famous thought experiment that illustrates the essential weirdness of quantum mechanics. That an object in a superposition simultaneously exists in multiple states that only resolve when an observer measures the object. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics bites the bullet of quantum measurement by claiming the world ‘splits’ whenever a quantum state is measured, implying there exists a universe where every physical quantum state exists. In this interpretation there is a universe where Shrödinger’s cat is alive and a separate universe where his cat is dead. This continuous branching can be thought of as just another dimension of expansion, no different from how time and space are continuing toward infinity. The key difference being our awareness of the universe depends on the resolved quantum configuration so we cannot directly observe expansion on this dimension as we can with space and time.

What does it mean for your life if the many-worlds interpretation turned out to be correct? Imagine a version of Shrödinger’s cat but instead of the cat, 1023 people signed up for a peculiar quantum lottery. Each participant promises their savings and belongings to the sole survivor of the lottery (assume everyone has about the same moderate wealth). As believers of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the lottery participants are happy to enter this lottery where only one of them will survive because of how the drawing mechanism works. On the day of the drawing each participant enters a chamber numbered 0-1024. The drawing proceeds as follows:

Ten electrons in superposition are assigned bits 1-10
The spin of each electron is measured in sequence.
- If the measurement of an electron results in a spin up state the corresponding bit resolves to 1.
- Conversely, a measurement that results in a spin down state resolves to 0.
The resulting 10 bit number is the winner
- E.g. ↑↓↑↑↓↑↓↑↓↑ becomes 1011010101, which is 725. Therefore, the winner is the person in chamber #725.
Every chamber aside from the winner is then filled with nerve gas.
The winner walks out ~1000X wealthier.

Fortunately, everyone gets t...

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