On 8/9/2025 4:05 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 10:23 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
*>> Suppose an atom has a half-life of one second and I'm
watching it, the universe splits and so do I after one second.
In one universe the atom decays and I observed that the atom
has decayed, in the other universe the atom has not decayed
and I observed that it has not decayed. **
**In the universe where the atom didn't decay after another
second the universe splits again, and again in one universe it
decays but in the other it has not, it survived for 2 full
seconds. So there will be a version of me that observes this
atom, which has a one second half-life, surviving for 3
seconds, and 4 seconds, and 5 years, and 6 centuries, and you
name it. *
/> And in fact for every value of t>0 in R./
*Yep.*
*>*/Another fanciful result of MWI. /
*What I have described in the abovethat was, as you say, obtained as a
result ofMWI, is called the"Quantum Zeno Effect" and it is _NOT_
fanciful, in 1990 it was _CONFIRMED EXPERIMENTALLY_ to exist. *
And the quantum Zeno effect is about atoms *NOT* decaying. There is no
experimental support for a continuum branching of worlds, that's what is
fanciful. I don't know why you tried to change the question to on of
*NOT* decaying.
Brent
*"By utilizing a series of increasingly complex and difficult
procedures it is possible for the lab (and you) to be in the universe
that contains labs and versions of you that see the atom surviving for
an arbitrarily long length of time. But the longer the time past its
half-life the more splits are involved, *
Independent of the time past or the value of the half-life the number of
splits, according to MWI, is the same as the number of points on a line,
i.e. infinite.
*and the more difficult the experiment becomes.**Soon it becomes
ridiculously impractical to go further, but it's not impossible."*
/> And all just to avoid dealing with a definite result./
*Definite result?All radioactive atoms seem to have a definite half-life *
The "definite half-life" is a parameter in the *probability* distribution.
*that you can look up in any physics textbook, *
Yes, that's something you should try.
Brent
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