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- All Subjects: many-worlds interpretation
- All Subjects: Social Media
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Status: Published
This thesis attempts to explain Everettian quantum mechanics from the ground up, such that those with little to no experience in quantum physics can understand it. First, we introduce the history of quantum theory, and some concepts that make up the framework of quantum physics. Through these concepts, we reveal why interpretations are necessary to map the quantum world onto our classical world. We then introduce the Copenhagen interpretation, and how many-worlds differs from it. From there, we dive into the concepts of entanglement and decoherence, explaining how worlds branch in an Everettian universe, and how an Everettian universe can appear as our classical observed world. From there, we attempt to answer common questions about many-worlds and discuss whether there are philosophical ramifications to believing such a theory. Finally, we look at whether the many-worlds interpretation can be proven, and why one might choose to believe it.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of entanglement and the particular problems it poses for some physicists. In addition to looking at the history of entanglement and non-locality, this paper will use the Bell Test as a means for demonstrating how entanglement works, which measures the behavior of electrons whose combined internal angular momentum is zero. This paper will go over Dr. Bell's famous inequality, which shows why the process of entanglement cannot be explained by traditional means of local processes. Entanglement will be viewed initially through the Copenhagen Interpretation, but this paper will also look at two particular models of quantum mechanics, de-Broglie Bohm theory and Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretation, and observe how they explain the behavior of spin and entangled particles compared to the Copenhagen Interpretation.
Social media posts included in the discussion were taken from Twitter and explored using the qualitative research-based Grounded Theory. Four celebrities were selected as case studies to illustrate hate that popular music artists receive. These celebrities were Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. Before the data collection process transitioned to Twitter for specific examples, Google Search was effective in providing background information on each celebrity's controversies. With open coding as the chosen stage of data analysis, tweets were grouped with those containing similar content (e.g. two tweets using the same insult).
Social media users can uncover problematic tweets and refuse to forgive celebrities for past mistakes, send threatening messages that encourage celebrities to kill themselves, shame celebrities for their physical appearances and sexualities and so forth. All of these concepts are observed within the respective literature review and discussion sections. The types of online harassment included are insults, devotion defending, threats and hacking.
The gathered data found that difference in the online harassment that female pop stars receive versus that toward male pop stars often lies in how people perceive their sexualities and physical appearances, as well as the distance perceived between the social media user and the celebrity. In the examples provided, women were regarded as “whores” for wearing certain clothing and blamed for issues in their relationships, whereas men were not seen as the problem and criticized for appearing too "feminine."
It is recommended that people become more aware of the consequences of online harassment in general, but particularly toward celebrities who are viewed as being unaffected by hate comments. Due to the limitations of this study, future research within this area should include people of color and various sectors of the entertainment industry.