Probability and the Wave Function

While I discuss this topic in my recent paper entitled, "The Power of Small Things," I don't cover it with much in the way of my personal flair.

Anyone who has ever watched poker on TV or played it at home knows that life is full of random chance. While a great deal of experience can teach us the percentage chances of a card coming up when we want it, these probabilities alone do not allow us any kind of control over the deck, just a chance to gamble on the odds.

The same is true on the Quantum scale. Quantum Mechanics is predicated upon the thought that we cannot know the outcome of a system with multiple possible outcomes, each with a finite probability of occurance, until we have observed it. What this means to most of us is that we don't know what that next card is until we see it. Things tend to get a little weirder on the quantum scale though. Common sense tells us that the next card in the deck is going to be the same no matter what. Whether we look at it or it's mucked as a result of a fold that card is still the same. When we start looking at particles the size of electrons, however, it isn't that simple.

All matter on the quantum scale exists in a state referred to by scientists as a wave function. While this can mean a literal wave under certain conditions it more commonly refers to all the places that particle can be at any given moment in time. Due to the complex interactions of particles on the quantum scale, this wave function has to include all the possible routes a particle can take to get from its initial position to its final position. This includes a straight line, a curved line, direct teleportation, and traveling into outer space and back again. Luckily all of these possible paths are compared to their probabilities of occurance, which tends to weed out the weird results. Ultimately we're left with a wave function that strongly suggests the simplest path, with all the more unlikely scenarios represented by small probabilities.

One of the more interesting possible results of this concept is something called the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI), introduced by Hugh Everett in 1957. When broken down to the most general sense, this interpretation of Quantum Mechanics says that any time a 'quantum experiment' occurs the world (defined as the Universe in which we reside) splits off into multiple worlds, where the multiple outcomes of the experiment each occur, in proportion to the probability of each outcome. Essentially this means that every outcome from every decision made (since a decision being made is far more complex than a quantum experiment) occurs. We only experience the outcome of our particular decision because we are the version of ourselves that made that decision.

When viewed this way probability takes on a whole new meaning. Maybe there's a world where the last card in the 2009 WSOP was a Queen instead of a Seven and Darvin Moon went on to win the braclet. Of course, that's the beauty of the MWI, since there is a finite probability of that occurring it means there HAS TO BE a world where Joe Cada lost.

I haven't decided upon a topic for Friday yet. If anyone has an idea, feel free to share.