Re: NYTimes.com: Start-Ups With Laser Beams: The Companies Trying to Ignite Fusion Energy

2023-11-18 Thread Brent Meeker
Fission is well in hand, used for decades.  There are promising new 
nukes like molten salt thorium and high temperature air cooled modular 
reactors.  But we don't have time for development.  Get on with building 
what we know.


Brent

On 11/18/2023 5:32 PM, 'spudboy...@aol.com' via Everything List wrote:
Well, and politically you guys know where I am, I stand for solar 
power as the easiest to advance and the cheapest to install. 
Specifically, Rooftop solar because its distributed. Why rooftop? Last 
June a large-scale solar array in Nebraska was wiped out by baseball 
sized hail. Also very big into storage as well. Both PV and Batteries 
are Leaping ahead. What about JC's Molten Reactors? Unless somebody 
uses AI to drive up the safety and drive down the costs, its nuclear 
limbo. Fusion? Fusion requires Deuterium + Tritium. We get Tritium 
from fission reactors so as Yogi Bera once said, "It's Deja Vu, all 
over again!" Geothermal and wind at sea? Well, lets hear about it?


On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 08:20:14 PM EST, Lawrence Crowell 
 wrote:



If I were to found a tech-startup the bottom choice would be to do 
fusion energy.


LC

On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 7:00:54 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Check out this article from The New York Times. Because I'm a
subscriber, you can read it through this gift link without a
subscription.

Start-Ups With Laser Beams: The Companies Trying to Ignite Fusion
Energy

Companies are looking to commercialize advances made by federally
supported research labs in the quest for boundless energy.


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/science/laser-fusion-energy-start-ups.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-Uw.Oyu0.wGd-eJajK30m=em-share



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Re: A new semiconductor that is 1 million times faster than silicon

2023-11-18 Thread Brent Meeker
What's evidence that the Moon contains significant rhenium?  A Dyson 
sphere is just fantasy.


Brent

On 11/18/2023 5:24 PM, 'spudboy...@aol.com' via Everything List wrote:
My only objection is why put the electrical energy into synthesizing, 
in micro amounts when we can, simply mine the moon or Psyche -16? 
Maybe when we do a Dyson Sphere around the Sun? Energy efficient so to 
speak.


On Monday, November 13, 2023 at 05:52:28 AM EST, Lawrence Crowell 
 wrote:



Interesting. I do think it is possible to reconfigure an atom, say a 
carbon atom, so that it assumes electronic properties of almost any 
other atom. We can in a sense synthesize Rhenium or any other rare 
element.


LC

On Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 1:33:02 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

In the November 10 2023 issue of the journal Science researchers
report on a new type of semiconductor that is one million times
faster than any found before and does so at room temperature; it's
a compound of Rhenium Chlorine and Selenium (Re6Se8Cl2), if entire
chips could be made of this substance they could make a
calculation in the femtosecond range (10^-15 of a second) instead
of the gigahertz range  (10^-9 of a second) as silicon does.

Room-temperature wavelike exciton transport in a van der Waals
superatomic semiconductor


Until now the transport of information in all semiconductors,
silicon including, is limited by scattering between electrons  and
lattice quantum vibrations called "phonons" that results in the
electrons losing energy and wasting their time by bouncing around
and traveling in a very indirect route to the target. Thanks to a
new phenomenon never observed before, the electrons in Re6Se8Cl2
move directly towards their target without losing energy or time.
Unfortunately it's unlikely that chip Industry will abandon
silicon and turn to it because Rhenium is rare and expensive,
about $3000 a kilogram and only about 50 tons are refined a year,
but now that researchers know what to look for they will almost
certainly find other materials that make use of the same new
phenomenon. Of course even if a cheap material could be found it
would still be a challenge to make advanced computer chips out of
it because we couldn't make use of 50 the years of experience we
have in working with silicon so we'd be starting from scratch, but
if it's 1 million times faster it would be worth it.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis

iww





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Re: NYTimes.com: Start-Ups With Laser Beams: The Companies Trying to Ignite Fusion Energy

2023-11-18 Thread 'spudboy...@aol.com' via Everything List
 Well, and politically you guys know where I am, I stand for solar power as the 
easiest to advance and the cheapest to install. Specifically, Rooftop solar 
because its distributed. Why rooftop? Last June a large-scale solar array in 
Nebraska was wiped out by baseball sized hail. Also very big into storage as 
well. Both PV and Batteries are Leaping ahead. What about JC's Molten Reactors? 
Unless somebody uses AI to drive up the safety and drive down the costs, its 
nuclear limbo. Fusion? Fusion requires Deuterium + Tritium. We get Tritium from 
fission reactors so as Yogi Bera once said, "It's Deja Vu, all over again!" 
Geothermal and wind at sea? Well, lets hear about it?
On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 08:20:14 PM EST, Lawrence Crowell 
 wrote:  
 
 If I were to found a tech-startup the bottom choice would be to do fusion 
energy.
LC

On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 7:00:54 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Check out this article from The New York Times. Because I'm a subscriber, you 
can read it through this gift link without a subscription.

Start-Ups With Laser Beams: The Companies Trying to Ignite Fusion Energy

Companies are looking to commercialize advances made by federally supported 
research labs in the quest for boundless energy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/science/laser-fusion-energy-start-ups.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-Uw.Oyu0.wGd-eJajK30m=em-share


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Re: The multiverse is unscientific nonsense??

2023-11-18 Thread Brent Meeker
A good letter to Brandes, but I think you use Schroedinger's cat to 
much.  If one imagines a clock attached to the poison vial, then it's 
clear that on opening the box you will see an alive or dead cat and a 
running clock or one that marks the exact time in the past that the cat 
was killed.  So decoherence theory has answered the problem of why we 
don't see superpositions of alive and dead cats.


Personally I'm just as happy (and unhappy) to say that all those worlds 
we don't see simply never exist and while exactly when they don't exist 
(as Everett would have it) is puzzling. it's less so than an infinity of 
worlds that sort of exist but in some orthogonal way that they can never 
have any effect.  The Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester works because it has 
certain probability of working.  Are you so wedded to a frequentist 
interpretation of probability that you must imagine existing copies of 
it not working?


I notice that you never entertain QBism and seem to dismiss it as "just 
not an intuitively satisfying theory; it doesn't have pictures for my 
mind."  To which I think, "so what; did you have a picture of inertia in 
Newtonian mechanics?"  Intuition comes from use and familiarity.


Brent

On 11/18/2023 7:15 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Nov 18, 2023 at 9:17 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

/> That's kind of him to reply.Aren't functional quantum computers
proof that atoms can be in two places at once?/


I would say so but apparently he would not. And I'll be damned if I 
can understand why the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester works if there is 
no other world but this one. The Copenhagen interpretation people 
would say that I should just treat mathematics as a black box and 
accept the results of the calculation and not even try to understand 
what's actually going on. But I'd like to at least try.



John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 


iws




On Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:58 AM John Clark  wrote:

/I read an article called The multiverse is unscientific
nonsense

 by
Jacob Barandes, a lecturer in physics at Harvard University,
and I wrote a letter to professor //Barandes commenting on it.
He responded with a very polite letter saying he read it and
appreciated what I said but didn't have time to comment
further. This is the letter I sent: /
===

*Hello Professor Barandes
*
*
*
*I read your article The multiverse is unscientific nonsense
with interest and I have a few comments:*
*
*
*Nobody is claiming that the existence of the multiverse is a
provenfact, but I think the idea needs to be taken seriously
because:*

*1) Unlike Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, the Many
Worlds theory is clear about what it's saying. *
*2) It is self consistent and conforms with all known
experimental results. *
*3) It has no need to speculate about new physics as objective
wave collapse theories like GRW do.*
*4) It doesn't have to explain what consciousness or a
measurement is because they have nothing to do with it, all it
needs is Schrodinger's equation.
*
*
*
*I don't see how you can explain counterfactual quantum
reasoning and such things as the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester
without making use of many worlds. Hugh Everett would say that
by having a bomb in a universe we are not in explode we can
tell if a bomb that is in the branch of the multiverse that we
are in is a dud or is a live fully functional bomb.  You say
that many worlds needs to account for probability and that's
true, but then you say many worlds demands that some worlds
have “higher probabilities than others" but that is incorrect.
According to many worlds there is one and only one universe
for every quantum state that is not forbidden by the laws of
physics. So when you flip a coin the universe splits many more
times than twice because there are a vast number, perhaps an
infinite number, of places where a coin could land, but you
are not interested in exactly where the coin lands, you're
only interested if it lands heads or tails. And we've known
for centuries how to obtain a useful probability between any
two points on the continuous bell curve even though the
continuous curve is made up of an unaccountably infinite
number of points, all we need to do is perform a simple
integration to figure out which part of the bell curve we're
most likely on.
*
*
*
*Yes, that's a lot of worlds, but you shouldn't object that
the multiverse really 

Re: A new semiconductor ​that is 1 million times faster than silicon​

2023-11-18 Thread 'spudboy...@aol.com' via Everything List
 My only objection is why put the electrical energy into synthesizing, in micro 
amounts when we can, simply mine the moon or Psyche -16? Maybe when we do a 
Dyson Sphere around the Sun? Energy efficient so to speak. 
On Monday, November 13, 2023 at 05:52:28 AM EST, Lawrence Crowell 
 wrote:  
 
 Interesting. I do think it is possible to reconfigure an atom, say a carbon 
atom, so that it assumes electronic properties of almost any other atom. We can 
in a sense synthesize Rhenium or any other rare element.
LC
On Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 1:33:02 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

In the November 10 2023 issue of the journal Science researchers report on a 
new type of semiconductor that is one million times faster than any found 
before and does so at room temperature; it's a compound of Rhenium Chlorine and 
Selenium (Re6Se8Cl2), if entire chips could be made of this substance they 
could make a calculation in the femtosecond range (10^-15 of a second) instead 
of the gigahertz range  (10^-9 of a second) as silicon does.

 Room-temperature wavelike exciton transport in a van der Waals superatomic 
semiconductor
Until now the transport of information in all semiconductors, silicon 
including, is limited by scattering between electrons  and lattice quantum 
vibrations called "phonons" that results in the electrons losing energy and 
wasting their time by bouncing around and traveling in a very indirect route to 
the target. Thanks to a new phenomenon never observed before, the electrons in 
Re6Se8Cl2 move directly towards their target without losing energy or time. 
Unfortunately it's unlikely that chip Industry will abandon silicon and turn to 
it because Rhenium is rare and expensive, about $3000 a kilogram and only about 
50 tons are refined a year, but now that researchers know what to look for they 
will almost certainly find other materials that make use of the same new 
phenomenon.  Of course even if a cheap material could be found it would still 
be a challenge to make advanced computer chips out of it because we couldn't 
make use of 50 the years of experience we have in working with silicon so we'd 
be starting from scratch, but if it's 1 million times faster it would be worth 
it.
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
iww







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Re: A weight loss drug lowers the chance of getting a heart attack

2023-11-18 Thread 'spudboy...@aol.com' via Everything List
 Meaning that you that real prevention is attainable nice, JC. Now, remember 
Kurzweil's fearless forecast from last March. Medical Nanobots by 2030. You may 
not need that head freeze after all? Long term impact? Oldies must leave earth 
for the solar system to give the young a starting chance. I got dibs on Ceres!
On Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 08:46:14 AM EST, John Clark 
 wrote:  
 
 In a large 40 month long research trial of 17,604 patients, researchers found 
that the weight loss drug "Wegovy" lowered the chance of suffering major 
cardiovascular problems by 20%. All the people in the trial were 45 years old 
or older and had a pre-existing cardiovascular disease and a body mass index of 
27 kg/m2 or greater (overweight or obese), but who did not have diabetes. It 
has already been established that the drug lowers the risk of heart attack from 
those who did have diabetes. 

The drugs Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus are all exactly the same and are all 
made by the same company  "Novo Nordisk", but for marketing reasons  they 
decided to give them different names depending on what they are used for, one 
when it is used to treat diabetes, a different name when used for weight loss, 
and yet another name when used to lower the risk of heart attack. To add to the 
confusion the chemical name for all three drugs is "Semaglutide", but they're 
all the same thing and they're all made by the same company.  I don't know it 
for a fact but I wouldn't be surprised if the next trial is to find out if 
Semaglutide lowers the risk of sudden heart attack in those who had no previous 
history of cardiovascular problems.

Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients With Overweight or Obesity 
Who Do Not Have Diabetes

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
wld


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Re: The multiverse is unscientific nonsense??

2023-11-18 Thread John Clark
On Sat, Nov 18, 2023 at 9:17 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

*> That's kind of him to reply. Aren't functional quantum computers proof
> that atoms can be in two places at once?*
>

I would say so but apparently he would not. And I'll be damned if I can
understand why the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester works if there is no other
world but this one. The Copenhagen interpretation people would say that I
should just treat mathematics as a black box and accept the results of the
calculation and not even try to understand what's actually going on. But
I'd like to at least try.


John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

iws




>
>
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:58 AM John Clark  wrote:
>
>> *I read an article called The multiverse is unscientific nonsense
>>  
>> by Jacob
>> Barandes, a lecturer in physics at Harvard University, and I wrote a letter
>> to professor **Barandes commenting on it. He responded with a very
>> polite letter saying he read it and appreciated what I said but didn't have
>> time to comment further. This is the letter I sent: *
>> ===
>>
>>
>> *Hello Professor Barandes*
>>
>> *I read your article The multiverse is unscientific nonsense with
>> interest and I have a few comments:*
>>
>> *Nobody is claiming that the existence of the multiverse is a
>> proven fact, but I think the idea needs to be taken seriously because: *
>>
>> *1) Unlike Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, the Many Worlds theory is
>> clear about what it's saying. *
>> *2) It is self consistent and conforms with all known experimental
>> results. *
>> *3) It has no need to speculate about new physics as objective wave
>> collapse theories like GRW do.*
>>
>> *4) It doesn't have to explain what consciousness or a measurement is
>> because they have nothing to do with it, all it needs is Schrodinger's
>> equation.  *
>>
>>
>> *I don't see how you can explain counterfactual quantum reasoning and
>> such things as the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester without making use of many
>> worlds. Hugh Everett would say that by having a bomb in a universe we are
>> not in explode we can tell if a bomb that is in the branch of the
>> multiverse that we are in is a dud or is a live fully functional bomb.  You
>> say that many worlds needs to account for probability and that's true, but
>> then you say many worlds demands that some worlds have “higher
>> probabilities than others" but that is incorrect. According to many worlds
>> there is one and only one universe for every quantum state that is not
>> forbidden by the laws of physics. So when you flip a coin the universe
>> splits many more times than twice because there are a vast number, perhaps
>> an infinite number, of places where a coin could land, but you are not
>> interested in exactly where the coin lands, you're only interested if it
>> lands heads or tails. And we've known for centuries how to obtain a useful
>> probability between any two points on the continuous bell curve even though
>> the continuous curve is made up of an unaccountably infinite number of
>> points, all we need to do is perform a simple integration to figure out
>> which part of the bell curve we're most likely on.*
>>
>> *Yes, that's a lot of worlds, but you shouldn't object that the
>> multiverse really couldn't be that big unless you are a stout defender of
>> the idea that the universe must be finite, because even if many worlds
>> turns out to be untrue the universe could still be infinite and an infinity
>> plus an infinity is still the an infinity with the same Aleph number.
>> Even if there is only one universe if it's infinite then a finite distance
>> away there must be a doppelgänger of you because, although there are a huge
>> number of quantum states your body could be in, that number is not
>> infinite, but the universe is. *
>>
>>
>> *And Occam's razor is about an economy of assumptions not an economy of
>> results.  As for the "Tower of assumptions" many worlds is supposed to be
>> based on, the only assumption that many worlds makes is that Schrodinger's
>> equation means what it says, and it says nothing about the wave function
>> collapsing. I would maintain that many worlds is bare-bones no-nonsense
>> quantum mechanics with none of the silly bells and whistles that other
>> theories stick on that do nothing but get rid of those  pesky other worlds
>> that keep cropping up that they personally dislike for some reason. And
>> since Everett's time other worlds do seem to keep popping up and in
>> completely unrelated fields, such as string theory and inflationary
>> cosmology.*
>>
>>
>> *You also ask what a “rational observer” is and how they ought to behave,
>> and place bets on future events, given their self-locating uncertainty. I
>> agree with David Hume who said that "ought" cannot be derived from "is",
>> but "ought" can be derived from "want". So if an observer 

Re: The multiverse is unscientific nonsense??

2023-11-18 Thread Jason Resch
That's kind of him to reply.

Aren't functional quantum computers proof that atoms can be in two places
at once?

Jat

On Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:58 AM John Clark  wrote:

> *I read an article called The multiverse is unscientific nonsense
>  
> by Jacob
> Barandes, a lecturer in physics at Harvard University, and I wrote a letter
> to professor **Barandes commenting on it. He responded with a very polite
> letter saying he read it and appreciated what I said but didn't have time
> to comment further. This is the letter I sent: *
> ===
>
>
> *Hello Professor Barandes*
>
> *I read your article The multiverse is unscientific nonsense with interest
> and I have a few comments:*
>
> *Nobody is claiming that the existence of the multiverse is a
> proven fact, but I think the idea needs to be taken seriously because: *
>
> *1) Unlike Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, the Many Worlds theory is
> clear about what it's saying. *
> *2) It is self consistent and conforms with all known experimental
> results. *
> *3) It has no need to speculate about new physics as objective wave
> collapse theories like GRW do.*
>
> *4) It doesn't have to explain what consciousness or a measurement is
> because they have nothing to do with it, all it needs is Schrodinger's
> equation.  *
>
>
> *I don't see how you can explain counterfactual quantum reasoning and such
> things as the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester without making use of many
> worlds. Hugh Everett would say that by having a bomb in a universe we are
> not in explode we can tell if a bomb that is in the branch of the
> multiverse that we are in is a dud or is a live fully functional bomb.  You
> say that many worlds needs to account for probability and that's true, but
> then you say many worlds demands that some worlds have “higher
> probabilities than others" but that is incorrect. According to many worlds
> there is one and only one universe for every quantum state that is not
> forbidden by the laws of physics. So when you flip a coin the universe
> splits many more times than twice because there are a vast number, perhaps
> an infinite number, of places where a coin could land, but you are not
> interested in exactly where the coin lands, you're only interested if it
> lands heads or tails. And we've known for centuries how to obtain a useful
> probability between any two points on the continuous bell curve even though
> the continuous curve is made up of an unaccountably infinite number of
> points, all we need to do is perform a simple integration to figure out
> which part of the bell curve we're most likely on.*
>
> *Yes, that's a lot of worlds, but you shouldn't object that the multiverse
> really couldn't be that big unless you are a stout defender of the idea
> that the universe must be finite, because even if many worlds turns out to
> be untrue the universe could still be infinite and an infinity plus an
> infinity is still the an infinity with the same Aleph number. Even if there
> is only one universe if it's infinite then a finite distance away there
> must be a doppelgänger of you because, although there are a huge number of
> quantum states your body could be in, that number is not infinite, but the
> universe is. *
>
>
> *And Occam's razor is about an economy of assumptions not an economy of
> results.  As for the "Tower of assumptions" many worlds is supposed to be
> based on, the only assumption that many worlds makes is that Schrodinger's
> equation means what it says, and it says nothing about the wave function
> collapsing. I would maintain that many worlds is bare-bones no-nonsense
> quantum mechanics with none of the silly bells and whistles that other
> theories stick on that do nothing but get rid of those  pesky other worlds
> that keep cropping up that they personally dislike for some reason. And
> since Everett's time other worlds do seem to keep popping up and in
> completely unrelated fields, such as string theory and inflationary
> cosmology.*
>
>
> *You also ask what a “rational observer” is and how they ought to behave,
> and place bets on future events, given their self-locating uncertainty. I
> agree with David Hume who said that "ought" cannot be derived from "is",
> but "ought" can be derived from "want". So if an observer is a gambler that
> WANTS to make money but is irrational then he is absolutely guaranteed to
> lose all his money if he plays long enough, while a rational observer who
> knows how to make use of continuous probabilities is guaranteed to make
> money, or at least break even. Physicists WANT their ideas to be clear,
> have predictive power, and to conform with reality as described by
> experiment; therefore I think they OUGHT to embrace the many world's idea.
>  *
>
>
> *And yes there is a version of you and me that flips a coin 1 million
> times and see heads every single time even though the coin is 100% fair,
> however it is 

The multiverse is unscientific nonsense??

2023-11-18 Thread John Clark
*I read an article called The multiverse is unscientific nonsense

by Jacob
Barandes, a lecturer in physics at Harvard University, and I wrote a letter
to professor **Barandes commenting on it. He responded with a very polite
letter saying he read it and appreciated what I said but didn't have time
to comment further. This is the letter I sent: *
===


*Hello Professor Barandes*

*I read your article The multiverse is unscientific nonsense with interest
and I have a few comments:*

*Nobody is claiming that the existence of the multiverse is a
proven fact, but I think the idea needs to be taken seriously because: *

*1) Unlike Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, the Many Worlds theory is
clear about what it's saying. *
*2) It is self consistent and conforms with all known experimental
results. *
*3) It has no need to speculate about new physics as objective wave
collapse theories like GRW do.*

*4) It doesn't have to explain what consciousness or a measurement is
because they have nothing to do with it, all it needs is Schrodinger's
equation.  *


*I don't see how you can explain counterfactual quantum reasoning and such
things as the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester without making use of many
worlds. Hugh Everett would say that by having a bomb in a universe we are
not in explode we can tell if a bomb that is in the branch of the
multiverse that we are in is a dud or is a live fully functional bomb.  You
say that many worlds needs to account for probability and that's true, but
then you say many worlds demands that some worlds have “higher
probabilities than others" but that is incorrect. According to many worlds
there is one and only one universe for every quantum state that is not
forbidden by the laws of physics. So when you flip a coin the universe
splits many more times than twice because there are a vast number, perhaps
an infinite number, of places where a coin could land, but you are not
interested in exactly where the coin lands, you're only interested if it
lands heads or tails. And we've known for centuries how to obtain a useful
probability between any two points on the continuous bell curve even though
the continuous curve is made up of an unaccountably infinite number of
points, all we need to do is perform a simple integration to figure out
which part of the bell curve we're most likely on.*

*Yes, that's a lot of worlds, but you shouldn't object that the multiverse
really couldn't be that big unless you are a stout defender of the idea
that the universe must be finite, because even if many worlds turns out to
be untrue the universe could still be infinite and an infinity plus an
infinity is still the an infinity with the same Aleph number. Even if there
is only one universe if it's infinite then a finite distance away there
must be a doppelgänger of you because, although there are a huge number of
quantum states your body could be in, that number is not infinite, but the
universe is. *


*And Occam's razor is about an economy of assumptions not an economy of
results.  As for the "Tower of assumptions" many worlds is supposed to be
based on, the only assumption that many worlds makes is that Schrodinger's
equation means what it says, and it says nothing about the wave function
collapsing. I would maintain that many worlds is bare-bones no-nonsense
quantum mechanics with none of the silly bells and whistles that other
theories stick on that do nothing but get rid of those  pesky other worlds
that keep cropping up that they personally dislike for some reason. And
since Everett's time other worlds do seem to keep popping up and in
completely unrelated fields, such as string theory and inflationary
cosmology.*


*You also ask what a “rational observer” is and how they ought to behave,
and place bets on future events, given their self-locating uncertainty. I
agree with David Hume who said that "ought" cannot be derived from "is",
but "ought" can be derived from "want". So if an observer is a gambler that
WANTS to make money but is irrational then he is absolutely guaranteed to
lose all his money if he plays long enough, while a rational observer who
knows how to make use of continuous probabilities is guaranteed to make
money, or at least break even. Physicists WANT their ideas to be clear,
have predictive power, and to conform with reality as described by
experiment; therefore I think they OUGHT to embrace the many world's idea.
 *


*And yes there is a version of you and me that flips a coin 1 million times
and see heads every single time even though the coin is 100% fair, however
it is extremely unlikely that we will find ourselves that far out on the
bell curve, so I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that I will
not see 1 million heads in a row.  You also say that "the Dirac-von Neumann
axioms don’t support oft-heard statements that an atom can be in two places
at once, or that a cat can be alive and dead