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Published online 23 December 2004 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news041220-12
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Natural selection acts on the quantum world
Objective reality may owe its existence to a 'darwinian' process that advertises certain quantum states.
A team of physicists has proved a theorem that explains how our objective, common reality emerges from the subtle and sensitive quantum world.
If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find?
Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism.
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