On 29 Nov 2017, at 23:40, Bruce Kellett wrote (to John Clark):
So for changes in constants to be unitary, there needs to be a hermitian operator that brings about these changes. But changes in constants only make sense for dimensionless constants such as the fine structure constant, and there is currently no theory as to how this would change in a unitary manner.
Interesting!
Of course, if you set up a situation in which a quantum event is amplified to give a difference in macroscopic outcomes, such as in Schrödinger's cat, then you can say that the macroscopic uncertainty has a quantum origin. But the majority of quantum events are not amplified in this way -- they simply occur randomly in large numbers so that the expectation value is unaffected by individual uncertainties.
OK. But when you toss a coin, you mix the quantum uncertainty of the position of the coin + the chaotic behavior entailed by you tossing mechanically the coin. Little difference in the position of the coin will be amplified by the chaotic shaking working together, that is shaking the coin long enough. By linearity, the errors does not grow much, but the chaos (due to the movement of your arms) amplifies the small quantum uncertainties, so that after some long time enough, the universe is a superposition of the two outcomes possibles, in many different worlds.
Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
