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Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives
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Program Overview
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Note: This program contains some explicit language. Please
preview it to determine its appropriateness for your classroom.
NOVA follows musician Mark Everett on his journey to learn more
about his father, Hugh Everett, and his father's groundbreaking
theory of parallel universes.
The program:
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introduces Mark Everett, the founder of the rock band Eels.
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explains the theory of parallel universes: With every event that
could happen in more ways than one, universes branch off in
different directions; meaning that moment to moment, we divide
into multiple versions of ourselves.
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states that while the classical laws of physics apply to large
objects, the laws of quantum mechanics govern the behavior of
the tiniest particles in the universe—atoms and their
subatomic constituents.
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traces Hugh Everett's journey to Princeton University to study
math and then quantum mechanics, and recounts how Everett first
came up with his radical theory when he was only 24 years old.
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demonstrates the double-split experiment and explains how it
supports the idea that particles sometimes appear to be in two
places at once.
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details Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, which holds that
quantum particles exist in multiple states until they are
observed, at which time they must stop behaving so bizarrely and
instead must only be in one state.
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illustrates Erwin Schrödinger's thought experiment, known
as Schrödinger's cat, and shows how the experiment
highlights the paradox in Bohr's theory (that the cat cannot be
both dead and alive at the same time).
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explains how Hugh Everett's theory solves the problem of
Schrödinger's cat being simultaneously dead and
alive—in a world of parallel universes, the cat can exist
in both states because it has split off into separate universes.
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recalls how Bohr rejected Hugh Everett's ideas when the two met
in 1959.
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reports how, when he realized the scientific community would
never accept his ideas, Hugh Everett left academia to devote his
career to defense work and then private business.
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notes that Hugh Everett finally received recognition for his
theory but died of a heart attack (at 51) only five years after
he was invited to give a lecture on parallel universes at a
physics conference at the University of Texas.
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concludes with Mark Everett listening to tapes of his father
that he found among his father's belongings.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after program is
recorded off the air.
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