Re: experimentation

From: Mitchell Porter <mitch.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 17:55:18 +1000 (EST)

> Max Tegmark's Many Worlds paper (quant-ph/9709032) gives an experiment
> called quantum suicide for testing the Many Worlds Interpretation. It
> seems possible a variant of this experiment could be used to test the idea
> that all universes exist (is there a shorter name for this idea?).

'Quantum suicide' is a ridiculous experiment. Suppose you tried to
kill yourself ten times and failed. What does that prove about the
existence of other universes?

Tegmark claims that MWI uniquely predicts that an experimenter
who attempts quantum suicide will hear ten clicks - but then says
that in most worlds, the experimenter will be dead before the tenth
attempt. What this boils down to is the assertion that *if* the
experimenter survives, they will have heard ten clicks. *All* the
interpretations agree on that.

-mitch
http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch
Received on Thu Feb 12 1998 - 23:59:24 PST

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