In Hilbert space, all things are quantumly possible

(quantamagazine.org)

41 points | by unprovable 2 hours ago

4 comments

  • djsjajah 33 minutes ago
    Not all things are possible, only potentially possible ones. If you take all the numbers between zero and one, you will find an endless supply of distinct numbers but none of them are 3.
    • tcdent 28 minutes ago
      Aren't you really just talking about the level of abstraction being applied? If there are infinite possibilities between zero and one, then it's just our way of relating to it that imposes the perception of a limitation.
      • packetlost 18 minutes ago
        Maybe you can theoretically encode arbitrary (but not infinite) information, but there are still discrete underlying states.
      • mathisfun123 19 minutes ago
        Terrence Howard is that you?
  • rozgo 1 hour ago
    "I would like to make a confession which may seem immoral: I do not believe absolutely in Hilbert space anymore." - John von Neumann
  • thrill 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
    • katzgrau 1 hour ago
      Or, there is no time. Awareness traverses the grand graph of possibility.

      Disclaimer: total armchair philosophy.

    • SantalBlush 1 hour ago
      Given infinite time, is it possible to randomly draw a rational (instead of an irrational) from the interval [0, 1]? And if so, is it possible infinite times?
      • rablackburn 1 hour ago
        Finally, a well-formed question to which the answer "42 (times)" is a possible solution.
      • adrianN 56 minutes ago
        "Randomly" drawing anything from [0,1] is already quite difficult.
      • LPisGood 1 hour ago
        Certainly! Probability 0 does not mean impossible.
        • voxl 23 minutes ago
          In this case it does. Describe any effective measure to pick a random sample from the interval and you will have cheated into choosing from the computable reals instead (of which there is a countable amount)
  • ocschwar 1 hour ago
    "What is a Hilbert space?"

    -- David Hilbert.

    • cgio 1 hour ago
      The nice additional reading is that you could even know what a Hilbert space is, but not what is a Hilbert space.