Hugh Everett III

Hugh Everett III was an American physicist whose 1957 Princeton doctoral thesis proposed the relative state formulation of quantum mechanics, later popularized as the many-worlds interpretation. It holds that the wavefunction never collapses; instead every possible outcome of a quantum measurement occurs, each in its own branching universe, which removes the special, observer-dependent role measurement plays in Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation. The idea drew little attention at the time, and Everett left academic physics shortly afterward for a career in Cold War defense operations research.