In Hilbert space, all things are quantumly possible

(quantamagazine.org)

37 points | by unprovable 2 hours ago

4 comments

  • djsjajah 15 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 9 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.
  • 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 43 minutes ago
        Finally, a well-formed question to which the answer "42 (times)" is a possible solution.
      • adrianN 38 minutes ago
        "Randomly" drawing anything from [0,1] is already quite difficult.
      • LPisGood 41 minutes ago
        Certainly! Probability 0 does not mean impossible.
        • voxl 5 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 56 minutes ago
    "What is a Hilbert space?"

    -- David Hilbert.

    • cgio 45 minutes ago
      The nice additional reading is that you could even know what a Hilbert space is, but not what is a Hilbert space.