Related papers: Can Future Events Influence the Present?
Models necessarily capture only parts of a reality. Prediction models aim at capturing a future reality. In this paper we address the question of how the future is constructed (or: imagined) in an investment context where market…
In this work we scrutinize the deterministic nature of globally hyperbolic space-times from the point of view of an observer. We show that a space-time point $q \in M$ that lies to the future of an observer at $p \in M$, receives signals…
The idea of predicting the future from the knowledge of the past is quite natural when dealing with systems whose equations of motion are not known. Such a long-standing issue is revisited in the light of modern ergodic theory of dynamical…
These are lecture notes written at the University of Zurich during spring 2014 and spring 2015. The first part of the notes gives an introduction to probability theory. It explains the notion of random events and random variables,…
The evolution of the widely-used PYTHIA particle physics event generator is outlined, from the early days to the current status and plans. The key decisions and the development of the major physics components are put in context.
The answers people give when asked to 'think of the unexpected' for everyday event scenarios appear to be more expected than unexpected. There are expected unexpected outcomes that closely adhere to the given information in a scenario,…
Many applications of computational social science aim to infer causal conclusions from non-experimental data. Such observational data often contains confounders, variables that influence both potential causes and potential effects.…
A single panel of a comic book can say a lot: it can depict not only where the characters currently are, but also their motions, their motivations, their emotions, and what they might do next. More generally, humans routinely infer complex…
A generalization of fluctuation theorems in stochastic processes is proposed. The new theorem is written in terms of posterior probabilities, which are introduced via the Bayes theorem. In usual fluctuation theorems, a forward path and its…
We derive new upper and lower bounds for probabilities that $r$ or at least $r$ from $n$ events occur. These bounds can turn to equalities. The method is discussed as well. It works for measurable space and measures with sign, too. We also…
Forecasting future world events is a challenging but valuable task. Forecasts of climate, geopolitical conflict, pandemics and economic indicators help shape policy and decision making. In these domains, the judgment of expert humans…
Evaluation of counterfactual queries (e.g., "If A were true, would C have been true?") is important to fault diagnosis, planning, and determination of liability. In this paper we present methods for computing the probabilities of such…
It is well known that the imposition of a constraint can transform the properties of critical systems. Early work on this phenomenon by Essam and Garelick, Fisher, and others, focused on the effects of constraints on the leading critical…
Recently it has been pointed out that an outstanding application of an IBM quantum computer is to reverse the arrow of time [Lesovik et al. Sci. Rep. 9, 1 (2019)]. The issue of the consequences of the reversal of the arrow of time on the…
We discuss the future evolution of the universe in the light of recent observations. The apparent luminosity vs. redshift of supernovae favor an accelerating universe. However an Einstein-de Sitter critical universe should not be ruled out…
We shall show in this paper that there are experiments which are Bernoulli trials with success probability p > 0.5, and which have the curious feature that it is possible to correctly predict the outcome with probability > p.
A tutorial review is given of some developments and applications of stochastic processes from the point of view of the practicioner physicist. The index is the following: 1.- Introduction 2.- Stochastic Processes 3.- Transient Stochastic…
The view that the laws of nature produce later states of the universe from earlier ones (prominently defended by Maudlin) faces difficult questions as to how the laws produce the future and whether that production is compatible with special…
In this Letter we study the effects of the Modified Uncertainty Principle as proposed in Ali et al. (2009) [5] in simple quantum mechanical systems and study its thermodynamic properties. We have assumed that the quantum particles follow…
People vary in their ability to make accurate predictions about the future. Prior studies have shown that some individuals can predict the outcome of future events with consistently better accuracy. This leads to a natural question: what…