While browsing Wikipedia for the rules of Russian Roulette, I stumbled upon an article about ‘Quantum Suicide and Immortality’. I’ve always been pretty interested in QM, and always thought that something like this was possible due to the probabilistic nature of QM, but I didn’t realise it was a full blown part of the theory. The whole thing is pretty much the concept of Schrödinger’s Cat, but from the cats perspective.
Note: Any kids out there; don’t even think of doing this.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality[/url]
[quote] For example, a man sits down before a gun, which is pointed at his head. The gun is rigged to a machine that measures the spin of a quantum particle. Each time the trigger is pulled, the spin of the quantum particle is measured. Depending on the measurement, the gun will either fire, or it won't. If the quantum particle is measured as spinning in a clockwise motion, the gun will fire. If the particle is spinning counterclockwise, the gun won't discharge; there will only be a click.
The man now pulls the trigger. The gun clicks. He pulls the trigger again, with the same result. And again; the gun does not fire. The man will continue to pull the trigger again and again with the same result: The gun won't fire. Although it's functioning properly and loaded with bullets, no matter how many times he pulls the trigger, the gun will never fire. He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal.
Go back in time to the beginning of the experiment. The man pulls the trigger for the very first time, and the particle is now measured as spinning clockwise. The gun fires. The man is dead.
But the problem arises; the man already pulled the trigger the first time -- and an infinite amount of times following that -- and we already know the gun didn't fire. How can the man be dead? The man is unaware, but he's both alive and dead. Each time he pulls the trigger, the universe is split in two. It will continue to split, again and again, each time the trigger is pulled, and become quantum immortal. ¬ This thought experiment is called 'quantum suicide'. It was first posed by then-Princeton University theorist Max Tegmark in 1997 (now on faculty at MIT).[/quote]
Now for the purpose of this post. I understand how each ‘measurement’ of a quantum particle breaks decoherence and creates a new branch of reality for each possible outcome of the state of that quantum particle. My beef is that, although we could technically do this and create ‘some’ realities where immortality happens, this would not necessarily be our own reality. Probabilistically, in our own reality, within the first several attempts you WILL die, totally oblivious to another version of yourself surviving in another reality (surely consciousness cannot cross realities, right?).
As we cannot chose which of these realities is ours, and the probability of being in the immortal reality is infinitely small (as it requires an infinite string of ‘survive’ outcomes) then surely this is totally unobservable (similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principal of not being able to predict the future states of quantum particles without knowing the information they contain – mass, velocity, direction etc – to an infinite degree of accuracy).
Just wondered what other people’s thoughts on this whole concept were.
p.s, I haven’t done physics since GCSE, so apologies if there are any inaccuracies here.
.....
The rules of Russian Roulette?
[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;16516328].....
The rules of Russian Roulette?[/QUOTE]
Yeah..got there from...somewhere...some actor or something. Cant remember.
Why would you play russian roulette with a quantum particle?
Yeah this is part of the Many worlds theory of QM. Interesting stuff.
[QUOTE=Seravi;16516347]Why would you play russian roulette with a quantum particle?[/QUOTE]
It's a thought experiment on the concept of immortality being possible under the rules of Quantum Mechanics.
wow
out with Newtonian theory and in with the quantum theory
you guys are rating me dumb but trust me.through histroy the same shit has happened. new ideas start becoming the establishment and statue for a way of thinking and it changes so every hundreds of years
and btw i said that comment sarcastically
I think the concept is cool and i think we should study some more in it but oh well.. I dont understand shit in Quantum. Dx
:psyduck:
i dont get it :/
So, that means every time he pulls the trigger, he creates 2 new parallel universes with just one differenc (death/alive)? Cool, but that means every decision creates new universes, so if two persons make a decision at the same time, does that make 4 new universes or just 2 and if you apply that to all of humanity and...
:suicide:
Couldn't the probability of the gun not shooting be infinitely large as well because of how big the entire probability scale is?
Also, wikipedia stole some of that content from here: [url]http://science.howstuffworks.com/quantum-suicide.htm[/url]
Can someone explain the scenario in laymans terms?
I don't have assburgers
I read something simmilar to this once which involved a cat in a closed box. Inside the box is a vial of poisonous gas. In a seperate compartment is a peice of lightly radioactive material and a geiger counter. A hammer is set up to fall and hit the vial (breaking it open and thus killing the cat) if the geiger counter goes above a certain reading (which is not always guaranteed).
The result of this is that at any given time, the cat is both dead and alive as no one can say which it is until the box is opened. Once the box is opened,the universe then splits into two; one where the cat lives and one where the cat dies.
So if you try and shoot yourself with a gun with a broken firing mechanism you become immortal? But then if you borrow the Doctor's TARDIS, go back in time and fire the gun, you're both alive and dead. Right.
[QUOTE=David29;16516395]I read something simmilar to this once which involved a cat in a closed box. Inside the box is a vial of poisonous gas. In a seperate compartment is a peice of lightly radioactive material and a geiger counter. A hammer is set up to fall and hit the vial (breaking it open and thus killing the cat) if the geiger counter goes above a certain reading (which is not always guaranteed).
The result of this is that at any given time, the cat is both dead and alive as no one can say which it is until the box is opened. Once the box is opened,the universe then splits into two; one where the cat lives and one where the cat dies.[/QUOTE]
Schrödinger's cat.
This image and small amount of writing makes it easier to understand:
[img]http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/quantum-immortality-1.gif[/img]
kinda.
it still doesn't make any real sense.
[QUOTE=rosthouse;16516376]So, that means every time he pulls the trigger, he creates 2 new parallel universes with just one differenc (death/alive)? Cool, but that means every decision creates new universes, so if two persons make a decision at the same time, does that make 4 new universes or just 2 and if you apply that to all of humanity and...
:suicide:[/QUOTE]
Yeh you've pretty much got it, just remember though, our conscious decisions are all effectively the result of quantum particles interacting, and that a quantum measurement is simply just whenever two quantum particles interact. With this, and the ammount of quantum particles in the known universe, we can assume that the amount of 'parallel universes' is effectively near infinite.
I’m sure there is probably a mathematical equation for working it out. Also notice how, because these increase over time, this is effectively the idea on entropy on a multiversal scale :smile:
Edit: not sure if 'entropy' was the right word actualy... I meant where a system grows and becomes more intense and complex over time
[QUOTE=David29;16516395]I read something simmilar to this once which involved a cat in a closed box. Inside the box is a vial of poisonous gas. In a seperate compartment is a peice of lightly radioactive material and a geiger counter. A hammer is set up to fall and hit the vial (breaking it open and thus killing the cat) if the geiger counter goes above a certain reading (which is not always guaranteed).
The result of this is that at any given time, the cat is both dead and alive as no one can say which it is until the box is opened. Once the box is opened,the universe then splits into two; one where the cat lives and one where the cat dies.[/QUOTE]
I've got three cats. Lets test this! :science:
This one's a little bit weirder because it relies more on the observation part of quantum mechanics.
Quantum Mechanics are a bitch.
[QUOTE=AltSwebonny;16516432]Schrödinger's cat.[/QUOTE]
That's the one.
:psyboom:
[QUOTE=Jacklus;16516459]Quantum Mechanics are a bitch.[/QUOTE]
Indeed my friend, indeed.
Won't he die from hunger or thirst before? :v:
[QUOTE=madjawa;16516506]Won't he die from hunger or thirst before? :v:[/QUOTE]
That's the thing with this subject. Anything can happen.
He would not be immortal as the gun is not the only thing that can kill him, he would die of old age or of hunger if the gun kept on not shooting.
Grrr, ninja
[QUOTE=madjawa;16516506]Won't he die from hunger or thirst before? :v:[/QUOTE]
Perhaps there is a machine that will either deliver or not deliver him a burger based on the state of a quantum particle too :clint:
which would mean he'd eat and then in a parallel universe not eat?
[QUOTE=xxxkiller;16516533]He would not be immortal as the gun is not the only thing that can kill him, he would die of old age or of hunger if the gun kept on not shooting.[/QUOTE]
Even with old age, there will be some realities, a tiny percent, where he DOESN'T age at all - as we are all made of quantum particles which can essentialy be in more then one state at any time. Apperatus like the OP scenario isn't needed for the creation of new realities, this happens as a natural part of our universe according to QM.
For everything that can kill the immortal, there will always be a tiny percent of realities where he survives.
Isn't this only the case if the subject is entirely unobserved?
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