Anna,
There is an ongoing discussion over on the google Everything list
about Quantum Suicide, which is nearly equivalent to a coin toss.
QS is proposed as a test of MWI- the Many World Interpretation of quantum
mechanics. In QS it depends essentially on a coin toss if an experimenter
is either killed or survives in each of two worlds created by the coin
toss. Anna's post below indicates that coin tosses are quantum events.
A witness accompanies the experimenter. There is with each experiment a
50-50 chance of survival. The question is if this is a valid test of MWI?
It turns out that the only way that MWI can work and predict known
experimental results is if the measures of the various experiments known to
the experimenter and the witness ahead of time are equivalent to the
probability of each new parallel world created by a great number of
experiments.
If the MWI measures predicted by both the experimenter and the witness are
equal to the collapse wave interpretation, then MWI is just another
interpretation with no chance of distinguishing one interpretation from
another experimentally. That is the standard perspective.
I disagree and maintain that after 2 million experiments: in which the
experimenter and a witness survive in one world; and another witness and a
dead experimenter are created in a created orthogonal world; the
surviving experimenter and witness in the final experiment would know to 5
sigma that MWI was/is correct.
But that is a tiny number compared to the 2 million witnesses that do not
have that information at the 5 sigma level and would have a minuscule
effect on belief thru-out the multiverse.
However, if the experiments were to continue another 2 million times, then
2 million new witnesses would know that MWI is correct at the 5 sigma level.
So by then half of the multiverse knows MWI is correct.
That is, at that point in time, there are 2 million
parallel/orthogonal worlds where the witness cannot distinguish MWI from
collapse theory at the 5 sigma level. But after 4 million experiments there
are an equal number of witnesses along with a dead experimenter in 2
million worlds where the witness can distinguish MWI from collapse at the 5
sigma level. Eventually with continued experiments, most of the multiverse
will believe in MWI.
If that does not make sense, you are not alone.
Richard
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 1:47 AM, Anna panth...@mail.com wrote:
**
Humble coin toss thrust to heart of multiverse debate
- 02 January 2013 by *Jacob
Aron*http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=Jacob+Aron
- Magazine issue 2898 http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2898. *Subscribe
and
save*http://subscribe.newscientist.com/bundles.aspx?prom=6005intcmp=SUBS-nsarttoppromcode=6005
- For similar stories, visit the
*Cosmology*http://www.newscientist.com/topic/cosmologyTopic Guide
WHY is there a 1 in 2 chance of getting a tail when you flip a coin? It
may seem like a simple question, but the humble coin toss is now at the
heart of a lively row about the multiverse. At stake is the ability to
calculate which, of an infinite number of parallel universes, is the one
that we inhabit.
The debate comes in the wake of a paper posted online a couple of weeks
ago by cosmologists Andreas Albrecht http://albrecht.ucdavis.edu/ and
Daniel Phillips, both at the University of California, Davis. They argue
that conventional probability theory, the tool we all use to quantify
uncertainty in the real world, has no basis in reality (
arxiv.org/abs/1212.0953). Instead, all problems in probability are
ultimately about quantum mechanics. Every single time we use probability
successfully, that use actually comes from quantum mechanics, says
Albrecht.
This controversial claim traces back to the uncertainty principle, which
says that it is impossible to know both a quantum particle's exact position
and its momentum.
Albrecht and Phillips think particle collisions within gases and liquids
amplify this uncertainty to the scale of everyday objects. This, they say,
is what drives all events, including the outcome of a coin toss.
Conventional probability - which says the outcome simply arises from two
equally likely possibilities - is just a useful proxy for measuring the
underlying quantum uncertainties.
In the case of a coin toss, quantum uncertainty in the position of
neurotransmitter molecules in the nervous system of a coin flipper might
translate into an uncertainty in the number of times a coin turns in the
air before being caught, ultimately determining whether it is a head or a
tail, the pair suggest.
In a back-of-the-envelope calculation that used estimates for coin size,
speed and neurotransmitter uncertainty, the pair were able to show that
this quantum sequence of events could give the same probability of throwing
a head or a tail as the conventional calculation - one-half. They say this
supports their argument that conventional probability is just
