POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Scientific Faith : Re: Scientific Faith Server Time
4 Sep 2024 15:23:42 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Scientific Faith  
From: Darren New
Date: 30 Mar 2010 18:06:50
Message: <4bb275fa$1@news.povray.org>
Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well, not really. The presumption is still that it *can* do so. However, 
> if there is a limit on what things can do that, such that a desk doesn't 
> simply have almost "no" chance of doing such a thing, but *absolutely no 
> chance*, then you have a difference situation. That is the point. 

Well, sure, but I never heard of anyone postulating that.

> Standard QM insists its possible, just so insanely improbable that you 
> will never see it happen. But, if QM gets even more greatly limited, or 
> virtually switched off, for objects whose size and density exceeds some 
> specific factor... That is a whole different ball game, since it means 
> your QM is trapped, like air in a balloon, and no longer has the "range" 
> needed to cause you desk to do such a thing.

QM also has probabilities that cancel out, such that there's zero 
probability of something happening in a combination where either individual 
event could happen. E.g., electron 1 might go to location X[*]. Electron 2 
might go to location X. Electron 3 might go to location X. But there is zero 
probability that all three will go to location X. Also, the likelihood that 
a photon will go somewhere far away at anything other than very close to the 
speed of light is zero (and not just very low), because the probabilities 
actually cancel out. You don't need to postulate an upper size on QM 
locality to get impossible events. And when "improbable" is "1/10^500 that 
any particle in the universe will ever do that", then yeah, that's pretty 
much impossible too.



[*] "location" in spacetime, i.e., an "event".

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.


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