Related papers: Heads or tails in zero gravity: an example of a cl…
The torque-free motion of rigid body in gravitational field is analyzed. The coin lands on a soft surface (such as the palm of the hand) that allows no bouncing. The model assumes the coin as a rigid body with constant angular momentum…
In a recent article in American Scientist, Theodore Hill described a coin-tossing game whose pay-off is the number of heads over the total number of throws. Suppose that at a given point during the game you have 5 heads and 3 tails, should…
We study a game in which one keeps flipping a coin until a given finite string of heads and tails occurs. We find the expected number of coin flips to end the game when the ending string consists of at most four maximal runs of heads or…
The behavior of a stationary inverted point mass pendulum pivoted at its lower end in a gravitational potential is studied under the influence of statistical fluctuations. It is shown using purely classical equations that the pendulum…
In quantum mechanics, it is often thought that the spin of an object points in a fixed direction at any point in time. For example, after selecting the z-direction as the axis of quantization, a spin-1/2 object (such as an electron) may…
We study the role of continuous measurement in the quantum to classical transition for a system with coupled internal (spin) and external (motional) degrees of freedom. Even when the measured motional degree of freedom can be treated…
An overview is given of the long-time and long-distance behavior of correlation functions in both classical and quantum statistical mechanics. After a simple derivation of the classical long-time tails in equilibrium time correlation…
Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…
Consider a coin tossing experiment which consists of tossing one of two coins at a time, according to a renewal process. The first coin is fair and the second has probability $1/2 + \theta$, $\theta \in [-1/2,1/2]$, $\theta$ unknown but…
Many people have flipped coins but few have stopped to ponder the statistical and physical intricacies of the process. We collected $350{,}757$ coin flips to test the counterintuitive prediction from a physics model of human coin tossing…
Contextuality lays at the heart of quantum mechanics. In the prevailing opinion it is considered as a signature of 'quantumness' that classical theories lack. However, this assertion is only partially justified. Although contextuality is…
We show that by switching on a spin-orbit interaction in a cold-atom system, experiencing a Zeeman-like coupling to an external field, e.g., in a Bose-Einstein condensate, one can simulate a quantum measurement on a precessing spin.…
Preciously given rules allow conscious systems to be included in quantum mechanical systems. There rules are derived from the empirical experience of an observer who witnesses a quantum mechanical interaction leading to the capture of a…
Contextuality is a central property in comparative analysis of classical, quantum, and supercorrelated systems. We examine and compare two well-motivated approaches to contextuality. One approach ("contextuality-by-default") is based on the…
The one-century-old Stern-Gerlach setup is paradigmatic for a quantum measurement. We visualize the electron trajectories following the Bohmian zig-zag dynamics. This dynamics was developed in order to deal with the fundamentally massless…
The toss of a coin is usually regarded as the epitome of randomness, and has been used for ages as a means to resolve disputes in a simple, fair way. Perhaps as ancient as consulting objects such as coins and dice is the art of maliciously…
We propose a pedagogical presentation of measurement in the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation. In this heterodox interpretation, the position of a quantum particle exists and is piloted by the phase of the wave function. We show how this…
The Hamiltonian of classical anti-de Sitter gravity is a pure boundary term on-shell. If this remains true in non-perturbative quantum gravity then i) boundary observables will evolve unitarily in time and ii) the algebra of boundary…
For spin-1/2 particles, using a suitable Mach-Zehnder-type setup with a spin-flipper, we argue that it is a direct consequence of the quantum mechanical treatment that an experimentally verifiable \textit{subensemble} mean of the measured…
A partially alternative derivation of the expression for the time dilation effect in a uniform static gravitational field is obtained by means of a thought experiment in which rates of clocks at rest at different heights are compared using…