I caught the second half of Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives on BBC Four last night, where Mark Everett of the band Eels travelled around the US to find out about his father Hugh Everett III, the physicist who developed the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. (New Scientist has a good interview with him too.)
I read Everett senior's landmark paper when I was doing my Master's degree, and at the time I agreed with Paul Davies' view that Many Worlds is "cheap on assumptions but expensive on universes". I later read David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality, and I was prepared to give the theory more time - but even so, I still find it a lot to ask. (It's better than the Copenhagen Interpretation though.) Not long after finishing my degree I got into Eels and saw them play live in London.
Only now do I know the connection. A fascinating programme.
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