Related papers: Science in a Very Large Universe
In this essay we discuss the difference in views of the Universe as seen by two different observers. While one of the observers follows a geodesic congruence defined by the geometry of the cosmological model, the other observer follows the…
A realist description of our universe requires a twofold concept of locality. On one hand, there are the strictly Einstein-local interactions which generate the time evolution. On the other hand, the quantum state space calls for a…
The probability distribution P from which the history of our universe is sampled represents a theory of everything or TOE. We assume P is formally describable. Since most (uncountably many) distributions are not, this imposes a strong…
Position probability distribution of a set of massive mutually exclusive particles in one dimension has been defined. Examples with a given two mutually exclusive particles system are considered. It is emphasized that quantum particles at…
The development of science and technology has progressively demonstrated the ability of humankind to understand and manipulate the physical world, and it has also shown some fundamental limitations to predictability of physical events. This…
This essay considers a simple model of observers that are influenced by the world around them. Consistent quantification of information about such influences results in a great deal of familiar physics. The end result is a new perspective…
The most striking observable feature of our indeterministic quantum universe is the wide range of time, place, and scale on which the deterministic laws of classical physics hold to an excellent approximation. This essay describes how this…
Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…
It is often stated that quantum mechanics only makes statistical predictions and that a quantum state is described by the various probability distributions associated with it. Can we describe a quantum state completely in terms of…
Quantum theory (QT) provides statistical predictions for various physical phenomena. The outcomes of these measurements are in general some numerical time series registered by some macroscopic instruments. The various empirical probability…
In modern physics only relative quantities are considered to have physical significance. For example, position assigned to a system depends on the choice of coordinates, and only relative distances between different systems have physical…
We establish three impossibility results regarding our knowledge of the quantum state of the universe. Suppose the universal quantum state is a typical unit vector in a high-dimensional subspace $\mathscr{H}_0$ of Hilbert space…
The initial conditions of our universe appear to us in the form of a classical probability distribution that we probe with cosmological observations. In the current leading paradigm, this probability distribution arises from a quantum…
Based on the probability distribution observed in complex systems and an assumption that the probability distributions of complex systems satisfy a new generalized multiplication, it is proved that the statistical theory of complex systems…
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a 'good' model. When addressing global properties of the…
The great advances in the network of cosmological tests show that the relativistic Big Bang theory is a good description of our expanding universe. But the properties of nearby galaxies that can be observed in greatest detail suggest a…
How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is…
The interpretation of the squared norm as probability and the apparent stochastic nature of observation in quantum mechanics are derived from the strong law of large numbers and the algebraic properties of infinite sequences of simultaneous…
We determine the inner product on the Hilbert space of wavefunctions of the universe by imposing the Hermiticity of the quantum Hamiltonian in the context of the minisuperspace model. The corresponding quantum probability density reproduces…
A closed vacuum-dominated Friedmann universe is asymptotic to a de Sitter space with a cosmological event horizon for any observer. The holographic principle says the area of the horizon in Planck units determines the number of bits of…