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Showing posts from September, 2007

The Great Quantum Suicide/Prayer experiment

One of the wackier ideas I've come across recently is the Quantum Suicide thought experiment. For a full explanation look here It concerns one of the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, (a subject I studied a long time ago at University & wasted many late evenings in pointless discussions of its philosophical implications). In the "Many Worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, all possible outcomes of an event occur in separate parallel universes. Consider a radioactive atom that has a 50/50 chance of decaying in any given second. We are unable to predict which of these outcomes will happen, only the chance of one or the other. Albert Einstein didn't like this idea, and was often quoted as saying "God does not play at dice". (Well, coin-tossing in this case). Enter the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) to the rescue. In fact at the end of a second, there are two parallel universes, one in which the atom has decayed, and one in which it hasn&#