Hugh Everett

"Quantum mechanics is reformulated, in a way which eliminates its present dependence on the special treatment of observation of a system by an external observer."

"As an analogy one can imagine an intelligent amoeba with a good memory. As time progresses the amoeba is constantly splitting, each time the resulting amoebas having the same memories as the parent. Our amoeba hence does not have a life line, but a life tree."

"The physical "reality" is assumed to be the wave function of the whole universe itself."

"[The Many-worlds interpretation is the] only completely coherent approach to explaining both the contents of quantum mechanics and the appearance of the world."

"Hugh Everett's work has been described by many people in terms of many worlds, the idea being that every one of the various alternative histories, branching histories, is assigned some sort of reality."

"If you want to get an interesting perspective do not think of Hugh as a traditional 20th century physicist but more of a Renaissance man with interests and skills in many different areas. He was smart and lots of things interested him and he brought the same general conceptual methodology to solve them. The subject matter was not so important as the solution ideas."

"Someone once noted that Hugh Everett should have been declared a "national resource," and given all the time and resources he needed to develop new theories."

"My father, Hugh Everett, III, author of the Many Worlds Theory, was a quiet man during the eighteen or so years I shared a house with him. Turns out he was depressed over a sad childhood and then being dismissed as a kook, only later - too late - to be recognized as a genius."

"I think about how angry I was that my dad didn't take better care of himself. How he never went to a doctor, let himself become grossly overweight, smoked three packs a day, drank like a fish and never exercised. But then I think about how his colleague mentioned that, days before dying, my dad had said he lived a good life and that he was satisfied. I realize that there is a certain value in my father's way of life. He ate, smoked and drank as he pleased, and one day he just suddenly and quickly died. Given some of the other choices I'd witnessed, it turns out that enjoying yourself and then dying quickly is not such a hard way to go."