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96-650: The concept of universal wavefunction was introduced by Hugh Everett in his 1956 PhD thesis draft The Theory of the Universal Wave Function . It later received investigation from James Hartle and Stephen Hawking who derived the Hartle–Hawking solution to the Wheeler–deWitt equation to explain the initial conditions of the Big Bang cosmology. Hugh Everett 's universal wavefunction supports

192-495: A cascading waterfall with Italian Renaissance -style architecture. Modern , Postmodern , contemporary , and other non-classical architectural styles are also seen in the city. The National Museum of African American History and Culture deeply contrasts the stone-based neoclassical buildings on the National Mall with a design that combines modern engineering with heavy inspiration from African art . The interior of

288-486: A 2023 population of 6.3 million residents. A locally elected mayor and 13-member council have governed the district since 1973, though Congress retains the power to overturn local laws. Washington, D.C., residents are, on the federal level, politically disenfranchised since the city's residents do not have voting representation in Congress; the city's residents elect a single non-voting congressional delegate to

384-487: A center of the nation's internal slave trade . After its survey, the new federal city was constructed on the north bank of the Potomac River, to the east of Georgetown centered on Capitol Hill . On September 9, 1791, three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington. The same day, the federal district was named Columbia, a feminine form of Columbus , which

480-450: A day, drank like a fish and never exercised. But then I think about how his colleague mentioned that, days before dying, my dad had said he lived a good life and that he was satisfied. I realize that there is a certain value in my father's way of life. He ate, smoked and drank as he pleased, and one day he just suddenly and quickly died. Given some of the other choices I'd witnessed, it turns out that enjoying yourself and then dying quickly

576-573: A distrust of conventional medicine throughout his life. During World War II , Everett's father was fighting in Europe as a lieutenant colonel on the general staff. After the war, Everett's father was stationed in West Germany , and Everett joined him in 1949, taking a year off from his undergraduate studies. Father and son were both keen photographers and took hundreds of pictures of West Germany being rebuilt. Reflecting their technical interests,

672-711: A fan of computer modeling while there. In 1957, he became director of the WSEG's Department of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Much, but not all, of Everett's research at WSEG remains classified. He worked on various studies of the Minuteman missile project, which was then starting, as well as the influential study The Distribution and Effects of Fallout in Large Nuclear Weapon Campaigns . During March and April 1959, Everett visited Copenhagen at Wheeler's request in order to meet with Niels Bohr ,

768-469: A federal town". In Federalist No. 43 , published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety. The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution permits

864-408: A garden-lined grand avenue about 1 mile (1.6 km) long and 400 feet (120 m) wide in an area that is now the National Mall inspired by the grounds at Versailles and Tuileries Gardens. In March 1792, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant due to conflicts with the three commissioners appointed to supervise the capital's construction. Andrew Ellicott , who worked with L'Enfant in surveying

960-502: A modern glass exterior and heavy curvature. CityCenterDC is home to Palmer Alley, a pedestrian-only walkway, and houses several apartment buildings, restaurants, and luxury-brand storefronts with streamlined glass and metal facades. Outside Downtown D.C., architectural styles are more varied. Historic buildings are designed primarily in the Queen Anne , Châteauesque , Richardsonian Romanesque , Georgian Revival , Beaux-Arts , and

1056-431: A relatively high homelessness rate, despite its high living standard compared to many American cities. Washington, D.C., is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: Northwest (NW) , Northeast (NE) , Southeast (SE) , and Southwest (SW) . The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol. All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location. House numbers generally correspond with

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1152-595: A snowstorm in January 1772. Hurricanes or their remnants occasionally impact the area in late summer and early fall. However, they usually are weak by the time they reach Washington, partly due to the city's inland location. Flooding of the Potomac River , however, caused by a combination of high tide, storm surge, and runoff, has been known to cause extensive property damage in the Georgetown neighborhood of

1248-676: A special committee charged with beautifying Washington's ceremonial core. What became known as the McMillan Plan was finalized in 1901 and included relandscaping the Capitol grounds and the National Mall, clearing slums, and establishing a new citywide park system. The plan is thought to have largely preserved L'Enfant's intended design for the city. By law, the city's skyline is low and sprawling. The federal Height of Buildings Act of 1910 prohibits buildings with height exceeding

1344-403: A translation the state vector would be meaningless. Wheeler wrote: One is led to recognize that a wave function 'encompassing the whole universe' is an idealization, formalistically perhaps a convenient idealization, but an idealization so strained that it can be used only in part in any forecast of correlations that makes physical sense. For making sense it seems essential most of all to 'leave

1440-473: A variety of Victorian styles. Rowhouses are prominent in areas developed after the Civil War and typically follow Federal and late Victorian designs. Georgetown 's Old Stone House , built in 1765, is the oldest-standing building in the city. Founded in 1789, Georgetown University features a mix of Romanesque and Gothic Revival architecture . The Ronald Reagan Building is the largest building in

1536-401: A very good examination. He dealt with a very difficult subject and defended his conclusions firmly, clearly, and logically. He shows marked mathematical ability, keenness in logic analyses, and a high ability to express himself well." With this Everett completed his PhD in physics from Princeton, his doctoral dissertation titled "On the foundations of quantum mechanics". A short article, which

1632-770: A very stubborn boy who has forced his way victoriously through strange difficulties created by himself for this purpose. Sincerely yours, A. Einstein Everett won a half scholarship to St. John's College High School in Washington, D.C. From there, he moved to the nearby Catholic University of America to study chemical engineering as an undergraduate. There, he read about Dianetics in Astounding Science Fiction . Although he never exhibited interest in Scientology (which Dianetics became), he retained

1728-504: Is also known as "E" and is the main singer and songwriter for the band Eels . The Eels album Electro-Shock Blues , written during the late 1990s, was inspired by E's emotional response to these deaths. Mark Everett explored his father's work in the hour-long BBC television documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives . The program was edited and shown on the Public Broadcasting Service 's Nova series in

1824-911: Is generally popular among tourists and locals. In 2007, six of the top ten buildings in the American Institute of Architects ' ranking of America's Favorite Architecture were in the city: the White House , Washington National Cathedral , the Jefferson Memorial , the United States Capitol , the Lincoln Memorial , and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial . The neoclassical , Georgian , Gothic , and Modern styles are reflected among these six structures and many other prominent edifices in

1920-567: Is not such a hard way to go. Of the companies Everett initiated, only Monowave Corporation still existed as of 2023 , in Seattle . It is managed by co-founder Elaine Tsiang, who received a PhD in physics under Bryce DeWitt at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before working for DBS as a programmer. Everett's daughter, Elizabeth, died by suicide in 1996, and his wife died of cancer in 1998. Everett's son, Mark Oliver Everett,

2016-501: Is water. The district is bordered by Montgomery County, Maryland , to the northwest; Prince George's County, Maryland , to the east; Arlington County, Virginia , to the west; and Alexandria, Virginia , to the south. The south bank of the Potomac River forms the district's border with Virginia and has two major tributaries, the Anacostia River and Rock Creek . Tiber Creek , a natural watercourse that once passed through

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2112-633: The American Civil War in 1861 led to the expansion of the federal government and notable growth in the city's population, including a large influx of freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862, which ended slavery in the district, freeing about 3,100 slaves in the district nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation . In 1868, Congress granted

2208-435: The Anacostia River to the east. Washington, D.C.'s street grid was extended, where possible, throughout the district starting in 1888. Georgetown's streets were renamed in 1895. Some streets are particularly noteworthy, including Pennsylvania Avenue , which connects the White House to the Capitol; and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups. Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue , located on

2304-544: The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park , the National Mall and Memorial Parks , Theodore Roosevelt Island , Columbia Island , Fort Dupont Park , Meridian Hill Park , Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens , and Anacostia Park . The District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation maintains the city's 900 acres (3.6 km ) of athletic fields and playgrounds, 40 swimming pools, and 68 recreation centers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates

2400-584: The House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate . To become law it would have to be passed by the Senate and signed by president; it would have renamed the city Washington, Douglas Commonwealth and shrunk the Federal District to about the size of the national mall. Designed in 1791 by Pierre Charles L'Enfant , the city is divided into quadrants , which are centered around

2496-628: The International Monetary Fund , the Organization of American States , and other international organizations. Home to many of the nation's largest industry associations, non-profit organizations, and think tanks , D.C. is known as a lobbying hub, with K Street as the industry center. The city had 20.7 million domestic visitors and 1.2 million international visitors, ranking seventh among U.S. cities as of 2022. The Algonquian -speaking Piscataway people , also known as

2592-536: The National Mall , was fully enclosed underground during the 1870s. The creek also formed a portion of the now-filled Washington City Canal , which allowed passage through the city to the Anacostia River from 1815 until the 1850s. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal starts in Georgetown and was used during the 19th century to bypass the Little Falls of the Potomac River, located at the northwest edge of

2688-623: The Washington Metro stations and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden are designed with strong influence from the 20th-century Brutalism movement. The Smithsonian Institution Building is built of Seneca red sandstone in the Norman Revival style. The Old Post Office building, located on Pennsylvania Avenue and completed in 1899, was the first building in the city to have a steel frame structure and

2784-607: The White House , the Capitol, the Supreme Court Building , and multiple federal departments and agencies . The city is home to many national monuments and museums , located most prominently on or around the National Mall , including the Jefferson Memorial , the Lincoln Memorial , and the Washington Monument . It hosts 177 foreign embassies and serves as the headquarters for the World Bank ,

2880-429: The oral exam for his PhD and did not continue research in theoretical physics after his graduation. Afterward, he developed the use of generalized Lagrange multipliers for operations research and applied this commercially as a defense analyst and a consultant . He died at the age of 51 in 1982. He is the father of musician Mark Oliver Everett . Although largely disregarded until near the end of Everett's lifetime,

2976-522: The "father of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics ". The visit was a complete disaster; Bohr "rejected Everett’s approach as a whole, defending the Copenhagen approach to measurement". The conceptual gulf between their positions was too wide to allow any meeting of minds; Léon Rosenfeld , one of Bohr's devotees, called Everett "undescribably stupid" and said he "could not understand

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3072-545: The 1830s, the district's southern territory of Alexandria declined economically, due in part to its neglect by Congress. Alexandria was a major market in the domestic slave trade and pro-slavery residents feared that abolitionists in Congress would end slavery in the district . Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to retake the land it had donated to form the district, a process known as retrocession . The Virginia General Assembly voted in February 1846, to accept

3168-472: The 446-acre (1.80 km ) United States National Arboretum in Northeast Washington, D.C. Washington's climate is humid subtropical ( Köppen : Cfa ), or oceanic ( Trewartha : Do bordering Cf downtown). Winters are cool to cold with some snow of varying intensity, while summers are hot and humid. The district is in plant hardiness zone 8a near downtown, and zone 7b elsewhere in

3264-535: The 9,122 acres (36.92 km ) of city land owned by the U.S. government. Rock Creek Park is a 1,754-acre (7.10 km ) urban forest in Northwest Washington, which extends 9.3 miles (15.0 km) through a stream valley that bisects the city. Established in 1890, it is the country's fourth-oldest national park and is home to a variety of plant and animal species, including raccoon, deer, owls, and coyotes. Other National Park Service properties include

3360-641: The Canadas , the British set fire to government buildings in the city, gutting the United States Capitol , the Treasury Building , and the White House in what became known as the burning of Washington . However, a storm forced the British to evacuate the city after just 24 hours. Most government buildings were repaired quickly, but the Capitol, which was largely under construction at the time, would not be completed in its current form until 1868. In

3456-488: The Capitol Building and include 131 neighborhoods . As of the 2020 census , the city had a population of 689,545. Commuters from the city's Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area , which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia , is the country's seventh-largest metropolitan area , with

3552-513: The City of Washington in 1895. However, the city had poor housing and strained public works, leading it to become the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century. The City Beautiful movement built heavily upon the already-implemented L'Enfant Plan , with the new McMillan Plan leading urban development in

3648-521: The Conoy, inhabited the lands around the Potomac River and present-day Washington, D.C., when Europeans first arrived and colonized the region in the early 17th century. The Nacotchtank , also called the Nacostines by Catholic missionaries , maintained settlements around the Anacostia River in present-day Washington, D.C. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes ultimately displaced

3744-449: The MWI received more credibility with the discovery of quantum decoherence in the 1970s and has received increased attention in recent decades, becoming one of the mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics alongside Copenhagen , pilot wave theories , and consistent histories . Hugh Everett III was born in 1930 and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. His parents separated when he

3840-645: The Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland . Nine cities served as capitals to the Continental Congress and under the Articles of Confederation . New York City was the first capital upon the adoption of the Constitution , succeeded by Philadelphia , which was capital from 1790 to 1800. On October 6, 1783, after the capital

3936-542: The U.S. House of Representatives. The city's voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment , passed in 1961. Washington, D.C. anchors the southern end of the Northeast megalopolis . As the seat of the U.S. federal government , the city is an important world political capital . The city hosts the buildings that house federal government headquarters, including

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4032-635: The USA in 2008. In the program, Mark says he was unaware of his father's status as a brilliant and influential physicist until his death. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C. , is the capital city and federal district of the United States . The city is on the Potomac River , across from Virginia , and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It

4128-504: The area. Blizzards affect Washington once every four to six years on average. The most violent storms, known as nor'easters , often impact large regions of the East Coast . From January 27 to 28, 1922 , the city officially received 28 inches (71 cm) of snowfall, the largest snowstorm since official measurements began in 1885. According to notes kept at the time, the city received between 30 and 36 inches (76 and 91 cm) from

4224-592: The borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point; many of these stones are still standing. Both Maryland and Virginia were slave states , and slavery existed in the District from its founding. The building of Washington likely relied in significant part on slave labor, and slave receipts have been found for the White House, Capitol Building, and establishment of Georgetown University. The city became an important slave market and

4320-462: The city , primarily in the U ;Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, which were predominantly black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until more than 13,600 federal troops and Washington, D.C., Army National Guardsmen stopped the violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned, and rebuilding from the riots was not completed until

4416-480: The city at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line . The highest natural elevation in the district is 409 feet (125 m) above sea level at Fort Reno Park in upper northwest Washington, D.C. The lowest point is sea level at the Potomac River. The geographic center of Washington is near the intersection of 4th and L streets NW. The district has 7,464 acres (30.21 km ) of parkland, about 19% of

4512-490: The city but bankrupted its government. In 1874, Congress replaced the territorial government with an appointed three-member board of commissioners. In 1888, the city's first motorized streetcars began service. Their introduction generated growth in areas of the district beyond the City of Washington's original boundaries, leading to an expansion of the district over the next few decades. Georgetown's street grid and other administrative details were formally merged with those of

4608-819: The city throughout the movement. Much of the old Victorian Mall was replaced with modern Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts architecture ; these designs are still prevalent in the city's governmental buildings today. Increased federal spending under the New Deal in the 1930s led to the construction of new government buildings, memorials, and museums in the district, though the chairman of the House Subcommittee on District Appropriations, Ross A. Collins of Mississippi , justified cuts to funds for welfare and education for local residents by saying that "my constituents wouldn't stand for spending money on niggers." World War II led to an expansion of federal employees in

4704-730: The city's classical-style architecture include buildings constructed in the French Second Empire style, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building , and the modernist Watergate complex . The Thomas Jefferson Building , the main Library of Congress building, and the historic Willard Hotel are built in Beaux-Arts style , popular throughout the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Meridian Hill Park contains

4800-416: The city's total area, the second-highest among high-density U.S. cities after Philadelphia . The city's sizable parkland was a factor in the city being ranked as third in the nation for park access and quality in the 2018 ParkScore ranking of the park systems of the nation's 100 most populous cities, according to Trust for Public Land , a non-profit organization. The National Park Service manages most of

4896-421: The city, was then tasked with completing its design. Though Ellicott revised the original L'Enfant plans, including changing some street patterns, L'Enfant is still credited with the city's overall design. By the early 20th century, however, L'Enfant's vision of a grand national capital was marred by slums and randomly placed buildings in the city, including a railroad station on the National Mall. Congress formed

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4992-408: The city. Summers are hot and humid with a July daily average of 79.8 °F (26.6 °C) and average daily relative humidity around 66%, which can cause moderate personal discomfort. Heat indices regularly approach 100 °F (38 °C) at the height of summer. The combination of heat and humidity in the summer brings very frequent thunderstorms, some of which occasionally produce tornadoes in

5088-530: The city. Many of the government buildings, monuments, and museums along the National Mall and surrounding areas are heavily inspired by classical Roman and Greek architecture. The designs of the White House, the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court Building , Washington Monument , National Gallery of Art , Lincoln Memorial, and Jefferson Memorial are all heavily drawn from these classical architectural movements and feature large pediments, domes, columns in classical order, and heavy stone walls. Notable exceptions to

5184-469: The city. Precipitation occurs throughout the year. The highest recorded temperature was 106 °F (41 °C) on August 6, 1918, and on July 20, 1930. The lowest recorded temperature was −15 °F (−26 °C) on February 11, 1899 , right before the Great Blizzard of 1899 . During a typical year, the city averages about 37 days at or above 90 °F (32 °C) and 64 nights at or below

5280-680: The city; by 1950, the district's population reached its peak of 802,178 residents. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1961, granting the district three votes in the Electoral College for the election of president and vice president, but still not affording the city's residents representation in Congress. After the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in

5376-405: The creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city was founded in 1791, and the 6th Congress held the first session in the unfinished Capitol Building in 1800 after the capital moved from Philadelphia . In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria , was officially recognized as

5472-486: The district's African American male residents the right to vote in municipal elections. By 1870, the district's population had grown 75% in a decade to nearly 132,000 people, yet the city still lacked paved roads and basic sanitation. Some members of Congress suggested moving the capital farther west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider the proposal. In the Organic Act of 1871 , Congress repealed

5568-758: The early 1970s, defense budgets were curtailed and most money went to operational duties in the Vietnam War , resulting in Lambda eventually being absorbed by the General Research Corp. In 1973, Everett and Donald Reisler (a Lambda colleague and fellow physicist) left the firm to establish DBS Corporation in Arlington, Virginia . Although the firm conducted defense research (including work on United States Navy ship maintenance optimization and weapons applications), it primarily specialized in "analyzing

5664-658: The east and north of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west and south. After the Act's passage, citizens in the district were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which ended their representation in Congress. On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 , British forces invaded and occupied the city after defeating an American force at Bladensburg . In retaliation for acts of destruction by American troops in

5760-604: The establishment of a "District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In the Compromise of 1790 , Madison, Alexander Hamilton , and Thomas Jefferson agreed that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing

5856-500: The federal district was a square measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side and totaling 100 square miles (259 km ). Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown , founded in 1751, and the port city of Alexandria, Virginia , founded in 1749. In 1791 and 1792, a team led by Andrew Ellicott , including Ellicott's brothers Joseph and Benjamin and African American astronomer Benjamin Banneker , whose parents had been enslaved, surveyed

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5952-408: The federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia , including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it created a single municipality for the remaining portion of the district. There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s; a statehood bill passed

6048-492: The first and only time. His talk was quite well received and influenced a number of physicists in the audience, including Wheeler's graduate student David Deutsch , who later promoted the many-worlds interpretation to a wider audience. Everett, who "never wavered in his belief in his many-worlds theory", enjoyed the presentation; it was the first time in years he had talked about his quantum work in public. But he did little to promote his theory, he said "[I] had washed my hands of

6144-506: The first to use electrical wiring in its design. Notable contemporary residential buildings, restaurants, shops, and office buildings in the city include the Wharf on the Southwest Waterfront , Navy Yard along the Anacostia River , and CityCenterDC in Downtown . The Wharf has seen the construction of several high-rise office and residential buildings overlooking the Potomac River . Additionally, restaurants, bars, and shops have been opened at street level. Many of these buildings have

6240-404: The freezing mark (32 °F or 0 °C). On average, the first day with a minimum at or below freezing is November 18 and the last day is March 27. Washington, D.C., was a planned city , and many of the city's street grids were developed in that initial plan. In 1791, President George Washington commissioned Pierre Charles L'Enfant , a French-born military engineer and artist, to design

6336-495: The goal of getting a favorable reception for at least part of Everett's work, but in vain. In June 1956 Everett started defense work in the Pentagon's Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG). Completing his PhD within a year of starting at WSEG was a job requirement, and in April 1957 he returned briefly to Princeton to defend his thesis. The oral examination took place on April 23. The principal examiners—Wheeler, Bargmann , H. W. Wyld, and Dicke —concluded: "The candidate passed

6432-487: The idea that observed and observer are all mixed together: If we try to limit the applicability so as to exclude the measuring apparatus, or in general systems of macroscopic size, we are faced with the difficulty of sharply defining the region of validity. For what n might a group of n particles be construed as forming a measuring device so that the quantum description fails? And to draw the line at human or animal observers, i.e., to assume that all mechanical apparata obey

6528-436: The individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown , abolished Washington County , and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. These steps made "the city of Washington...legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia." In 1873, President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd as Governor of the District of Columbia. Shepherd authorized large projects that modernized

6624-437: The late 1990s. In 1973, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act providing for an elected mayor and 13-member council for the district. In 1975, Walter Washington became the district's first elected and first black mayor. Since the 1980s, the D.C. statehood movement has grown in prominence. In 2016, a referendum on D.C. statehood resulted in an 85% support among Washington, D.C., voters for it to become

6720-464: The mathematics department, where he worked on the nascent field of game theory under Albert W. Tucker , but slowly drifted into physics. In 1953 he took his first physics courses, notably Introductory Quantum Mechanics with Robert Dicke . In 1954, Everett took Methods of Mathematical Physics with Eugene Wigner , although he remained active in mathematics and presented a paper on military game theory in December. He passed his general examinations in

6816-437: The name Washington, Douglas Commonwealth (thus keeping the same abbreviation Washington, D.C.). The legalities, reasons, and impact of statehood have been heavily debated in the 2020s. Washington, D.C., is located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. East Coast . The city has a total area of 68.34 square miles (177 km ), of which 61.05 square miles (158.1 km ) is land and 7.29 square miles (18.9 km ) (10.67%)

6912-503: The nation's 51st state . In March 2017, the city's congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill for statehood. Reintroduced in 2019 and 2021 as the Washington, D.C., Admission Act , the U.S. House of Representatives passed it in April 2021. After not progressing in the Senate, the statehood bill was introduced again in January 2023. The bill would have made D.C. into a state with one representative and two senators, with

7008-496: The new capital. He enlisted the help of Isaac Roberdeau, Étienne Sulpice Hallet and Scottish surveyor Alexander Ralston to help lay out the city plan. The L'Enfant Plan featured broad streets and avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping. L'Enfant was also provided a roll of maps by Thomas Jefferson depicting Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Turin, and Milan. L'Enfant's design also envisioned

7104-604: The new national capital in the Southern United States . On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act , which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River . Under the Residence Act, the exact location was to be selected by President George Washington , who signed the bill into law on July 16, 1790. Formed from land donated by Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of

7200-552: The north and south sides of the National Mall, respectively, are home to many of Washington's iconic museums, including many Smithsonian Institution buildings and the National Archives Building . Washington hosts 177 foreign embassies ; these maintain nearly 300 buildings and more than 1,600 residential properties, many of which are on a section of Massachusetts Avenue informally known as Embassy Row . The architecture of Washington, D.C., varies greatly and

7296-404: The number of blocks away from the Capitol. Most streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW), north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW), and diagonal avenues, many of which are named after states . The City of Washington was bordered on the north by Boundary Street (renamed Florida Avenue in 1890); Rock Creek to the west, and

7392-474: The observer out of the wave function'. Hugh Everett Hugh Everett III ( / ˈ ɛ v ər ɪ t / ; November 11, 1930 – July 19, 1982) was an American physicist who, in his 1957 PhD thesis, proposed what is now known as the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics . In danger of losing his draft deferment, Everett took a research job with the Pentagon the year before completing

7488-479: The pictures were "almost devoid of people". Everett graduated from the Catholic University of America in 1953 with a degree in chemical engineering , although he had completed sufficient courses for a mathematics degree as well. Everett received a National Science Foundation fellowship that allowed him to attend Princeton University for graduate studies. He started his studies at Princeton in

7584-419: The return of Alexandria. On July 9, 1846, Congress went further, agreeing to return all territory that Virginia had ceded to the district during its formation. This left the district's area consisting only of the portion originally donated by Maryland. Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the district, although not slavery itself. The outbreak of

7680-492: The simplest things in quantum mechanics". Everett later described this experience as "hell...doomed from the beginning". While in Copenhagen, Everett started work on a new idea to use generalized Lagrange multipliers for mathematical optimization . His theorem, published in 1963, relates the Lagrangian bidual to the primal problem. In 1962 Everett accepted an invitation to present the relative-state formulation (as it

7776-474: The socioeconomic effects of government affirmative action programs" as a contractor under the auspices of the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare . For a while, the company was partially supported by American Management Systems , a business consulting firm that drew upon algorithms Everett developed. He concurrently held a non-administrative vice presidency at AMS and

7872-579: The spring of 1955, thereby gaining his master's degree , and then started work on his dissertation that would (much) later make him famous. He switched thesis advisor to John Archibald Wheeler sometime in 1955, wrote a couple of short papers on quantum theory , and completed his long paper "Wave Mechanics Without Probability" in April 1956. In his third year at Princeton, Everett moved into an apartment he shared with three friends he had made during his first year, Hale Trotter , Harvey Arnold and Charles Misner . Arnold later described Everett as follows: He

7968-536: The technical objections they raised, were also published. Meanwhile DeWitt, who had corresponded with Everett on the many-worlds / relative state interpretation when it was published in 1957, started editing an anthology on the many-worlds interpretation. In addition to the original articles by Everett and Wheeler, the anthology was dominated by Everett's 1956 paper "The Theory of the Universal Wavefunction", which had never been published before. The book

8064-421: The time. A committed atheist, he had asked that his remains be disposed of in the trash. His wife first kept his ashes in an urn, but after a few years she complied with his wishes. Of Everett's death, his son, Mark Oliver Everett , later said: I think about how angry I was that my dad didn't take better care of himself. How he never went to a doctor, let himself become grossly overweight, smoked three packs

8160-408: The usual laws, but that they are not valid for living observers, does violence to the so-called principle of psycho-physical parallelism . Eugene Wigner and John Archibald Wheeler take issue with this stance. Wigner wrote: The state vector of my mind, even if it were completely known, would not give its impressions. A translation from state vector to impressions would be necessary; without such

8256-599: The whole affair in 1956". Wheeler started the process of returning Everett to a physics career by establishing a new research institute in California, but nothing came of that proposal. In 1980, Wheeler said he thought the theory "creates too great a load of metaphysical baggage to carry along". At age 51, Everett died suddenly of a heart attack at home in his bed on the night of July 18–19, 1982. His obesity, frequent chain-smoking and alcohol drinking almost certainly contributed to this, although he seemed healthy at

8352-541: The width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m). Despite popular belief, no law has ever limited buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument , which remains the district's tallest structure. City leaders have cited the height restriction as a primary reason that the district has limited affordable housing and its metro area has suburban sprawl and traffic problems. Washington, D.C., still has

8448-419: Was a poetic name for the United States commonly used at that time. Congress held its first session there on November 17, 1800. Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 , which officially organized the district and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal government. The area within the district was organized into two counties, the County of Washington to

8544-538: Was a compromise between Everett and Wheeler about how to present the many-worlds concept and almost identical to the final version of his thesis, was published in Reviews of Modern Physics , accompanied by a favorable review by Wheeler. Everett was not happy with the article's final form. On October 23–26, 1956, Everett attended a weapons orientation course managed by Sandia National Laboratories at Albuquerque, New Mexico , to learn about nuclear weapons , and became

8640-583: Was forced by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 to move to Princeton, Congress resolved to consider a new location for it. The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts moved "that buildings for the use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware near Trenton , or of the Potomac , near Georgetown , provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers as aforesaid, for

8736-483: Was frequently consulted by the firm's founders. Everett cultivated an early aptitude for computer programming at IDA and favored the TRS-80 at DBS, where he primarily worked for the rest of his life. In 1970 Bryce DeWitt wrote an article for Physics Today on Everett's relative-state theory, which he dubbed many-worlds , which prompted a number of letters from physicists. These letters, and DeWitt's responses to

8832-439: Was named after George Washington , the first president of the United States . The district is named after Columbia , the female personification of the nation . The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress . As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state , and is not one itself. The Residence Act , adopted on July 16, 1790, approved

8928-424: Was published late in 1973 and sold out completely. In 1976 an article on Everett's work appeared in the science fiction magazine Analog . In 1977, Everett was invited to give a talk at a conference Wheeler had organized at Wheeler's new location at the University of Texas at Austin . As with the Copenhagen visit, Everett vacationed from his defense work and traveled with his family. Everett met DeWitt there for

9024-496: Was smart in a very broad way. I mean, to go from chemical engineering to mathematics to physics and spending most of the time buried in a science fiction book, I mean, this is talent. During this time, Everett met Nancy Gore, who typed up his paper "Wave Mechanics Without Probability". He married her the next year. The paper was later retitled "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function". Wheeler traveled to Copenhagen in May 1956 with

9120-542: Was still called) at a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics at Xavier University . In his exposition Everett presented his derivation of probability and also stated explicitly that observers in all branches of the wavefunction were equally "real." He also agreed with an observation by Boris Podolsky that "It looks like we would have a non-denumerable infinity of worlds". In August 1964, Everett and several WSEG colleagues started Lambda Corp. to apply military modeling solutions to various civilian problems. During

9216-480: Was young. Initially raised by his mother (Katherine Lucille Everett, née Kennedy), he was raised by his father (Hugh Everett, Jr.) and stepmother (Sarah Everett, née Thrift) from the age of seven. At age 12, Everett wrote a letter to Albert Einstein asking him whether that which maintained the universe was something random or unifying. Einstein responded as follows: Dear Hugh: There is no such thing like an irresistible force and immovable body. But there seems to be

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