The Laplacian Quantum Universe—A Single-World Alternative to Many-Worlds Interpretations

This paper shows how to treat quantum field theory as a modern, locally Lorentz covariant quantum version of the classical, mechanical universe suggested by Laplace over 200 years ago. The result is a fairly common-sense single-history, single-world alternative to decoherent histories (Gell-Mann and Hartle) and many-worlds interpretations (Everett, DeWitt). From the assumption that there is a single universal Heisenberg state whose N-point functions uniquely describe all physical details of our universe, everything is rigorously deduced in a way showing that the mathematical formalism is capable of yielding its own interpretation. Probabilities arise from the neglect of the environment in approximate models. By giving the collapse of the wave function at a double slit a natural unitary explanation, new light is shed on the quantum measurement problem and the origin of the Born rule.