RE: middle way

From: Doug Jones <Douglas_Jones.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 14:35:58 -0800

Jacques wrote:

> If "various polls of leading physicists have concluded that, when
> pressed for an answer, more believe MWI than anything else", I would like
> to see the results of those polls myself. Reference, please.

Michael Clive Price refers to such polls in his Many-Worlds FAQ
(http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm and
http://soong.club.cc.cmu.edu/~pooh/lore/manyworlds.html among others). A
brief quote follows:

>>

"Political scientist" L David Raub reports a poll of 72 of the "leading
cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" about the "Many-Worlds
Interpretation" and gives the following response breakdown [T].

1) "Yes, I think MWI is true" 58%

2) "No, I don't accept MWI" 18%

3) "Maybe it's true but I'm not yet convinced" 13%

4) "I have no opinion one way or the other" 11%

Amongst the "Yes, I think MWI is true" crowd listed are Stephen Hawking and
Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Gell-Mann and Hawking
recorded reservations with the name "many-worlds", but not with the theory's
content. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is also mentioned as a many-worlder,
although the suggestion is not when the poll was conducted, presumably
before 1988 (when Feynman died). The only "No, I don't accept MWI" named is
Penrose.

The findings of this poll are in accord with other polls, that many-worlds
is most popular amongst scientists who may rather loosely be described as
string theorists or quantum gravitists/cosmologists. It is less popular
amongst the wider scientific community who mostly remain in ignorance of it.

<<

Anybody know anything about Price's sources for this?
Received on Sun Nov 28 1999 - 14:39:13 PST

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