Related papers: On the Mathematics of the Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox
We propose an experimental setup for the implementation of weak measurements in the context of the gedankenexperiment known as Hardy's Paradox. As Aharonov et al. showed, these weak values form a language with which the paradox can be…
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
The Sorites paradox is the name of a class of paradoxes that arise when vague predicates are considered. Vague predicates lack sharp boundaries in extension and is therefore not clear exactly when such predicates apply. Several approaches…
Consider the following story: A teacher announces to her students a test for the following week, such that the test will be ``surprising''. The students use this as the basis for a ``logical derivation'' and reach a contradiction, which…
The Parrondo's paradox is a counterintuitive phenomenon where individually-losing strategies can be combined in producing a winning expectation. In this paper, the issues surrounding the Parrondo's paradox are investigated. The focus is…
This paper deals with a new Bayesian approach to the standard one-sample $z$- and $t$- tests. More specifically, let $x_1,\ldots,x_n$ be an independent random sample from a normal distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance $\sigma^2$. The…
As with a Bell inequality, Hardy's paradox manifests a contradiction between the prediction given by quantum theory and local-hidden variable theories. In this work, we give two generalizations of Hardy's arguments for manifesting such a…
A perennial objection against Bayes factor point-null hypothesis tests is that the point-null hypothesis is known to be false from the outset. We examine the consequences of approximating the sharp point-null hypothesis by a hazy…
Bayesian parameter inference depends on a choice of prior probability distribution for the parameters in question. The prior which makes the posterior distribution maximally sensitive to data is called the Jeffreys prior, and it is…
The paradoxes of thermodynamics and statistical physics are unavoidable in the study of physical paradoxes because of their importance at the time they came to be as well as the frequency of their appearance in historical studies of…
The likelihood principle makes strong claims about the nature of statistical evidence but is controversial. Its claims are undermined by the existence of several examples that are assumed to show that it allows, with unity probability,…
The Behrens-Fisher problem concerns testing the equality of the means of two normal populations with possibly different variances. The null hypothesis in this problem induces a statistical model for which the likelihood function may have…
To counter a general belief that all the paradoxes stem from a kind of circularity (or involve some self--reference, or use a diagonal argument) Stephen Yablo designed a paradox in 1993 that seemingly avoided self--reference. We turn…
The principle of invariance of the velocity of light is only valid for the wrong measurements of inertial observers who ignore their own movement and consider themselves at rest. The Langevin (or clock) paradox arises when it is assumed…
Bayesian methods are increasingly applied in these days in the theory and practice of statistics. Any Bayesian inference depends on a likelihood and a prior. Ideally one would like to elicit a prior from related sources of information or…
This article presents the results of research into the causes of the Gibbs paradox in the formulation discussed by J. W. Gibbs himself. In this formulation, we are talking about an inexplicable (paradoxical) jump in the entropy of mixing of…
Hardy's paradox was originally presented as a demonstration, without inequalities, of the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and the hypothesis of local causality. Equipped with newly developed tools that allow for a quantitative…
The suggestion that particles of the same kind may be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, even so that challenges to traditional notions of individuality and identity may arise, has first come up in the context of classical…
The aim of this paper, triggered by some discussions in the astrophysics community raised by astro-ph/0508529, is to introduce the issue of `fits' from a probabilistic perspective (also known as Bayesian), with special attention to the…
Recently, the educational initiative TED-Ed has published a popular brain teaser coined the 'frog riddle', which illustrates non-intuitive implications of conditional probabilities. In its intended form, the frog riddle is a reformulation…