Schrödinger's Rabbits The Many Worlds of Quantum (2004) / Chapter Skim
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7 Pick Your Own Universe
7 Pick Your Own Universe
Pages 92-105
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From page 92... ...
In a sense, we have an inf nity of choices. The warning is that it is perilously easy to make a choice that hinders progress rather than helping it, and we shall look at some pertinent cautionary tales.
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From page 93... ...
Many readers wit have heard of game theory, a field of mathematics whose applications indude finding optima strategies in such fields as business, military convict, and deterrence, where Me decisions of offers must be taken into account. Rather more obscure is games theory, whidh concerns itself with real-life games sudh as chess and bridge usuaLLy games involving boards, cards, dice, and sudhLike accessories.
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From page 94... ...
A few years ago. on a long airplane flight, I found myself sitting next to a charming lady whose son was happily occupied with a book on We game Pokemon, then a worldwide fad among preteens.
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From page 95... ...
. Ninesyllable games sometimes end in a draw with neither player winning, a though shorter ones never do.
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From page 96... ...
Flurnp, choo, nis, and doh are not nearly so useful; wibble, fizz, gab, and zig come somewhere in between. EventuaLyyouworkoutffie secret: there are eight"magictriples"ofsyBables, namely, zig, Clump, wibble ni, ag, choo gab, doh, fizz zig, ni, gab I lump, ag, doh wibble, choo, fizz zig, ag.
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From page 97... ...
I have cranked the code for Me a ien number system." He writes down Me for owing table: flump = I gab = 2 dhoo=3 fizz=4 ag=5 xig = 6 ni=7 wibble = 8 doh=9 "Each a ien takes a stick in turn, adding it to his personal coHection, unti he has a set from which three sticks add up to exactly 15 units in lengdl. Let me remind you of Me first game we saw, the game d at went: XIG tromp WIBBLE ni AG dhoo DOH gab.
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From page 98... ...
Remember Me first game we saw, Me game that went XIG dump WIBBLE ni AG dhoo DOH gab? After those moves the board looks like this, where Me first alien writes X and the second 0: X O X X X o O o
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From page 99... ...
It inspired me to draw a tidk-tack-toe board labeled as follows:' 6 xlg 1 flump ag 9 dah 8 wibble m gah choo 4 nzZ "Why, of course," you exdairn, "it is We famous magic square: one whose every row, column, and diagonal add to 15. Wiffi this board, you can see instantLy how We numerica and tick-tack-toe interpretations of the alien game are really one and We same Thing.
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From page 100... ...
I can also tell from universal aesthetic principles that the gods are imagining their worshippers gathering in a vestibule lined with red velvet, and dhoo is wearing a bronze amulet:' Before you can comment on this, someone stands up and beats you to it. He is the expedition's cu tura relativist.
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From page 101... ...
Certainly, We cuLturaL relativist is mistaken to Maim that any story wiLL do, because stories contain statements that can be taLsitied as wet as ones that cannot. The anthropologist might have gone a bit over It e top about Me red velvet, but Me eight winning triads described by his theory are the correct ones.
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From page 102... ...
In modern terms, we would say that they have different specific heats. Substances also differed in how readily phlogiston could flaw through them; in modern terms, they have different ffiermal conductivities.
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From page 103... ...
Einstein's famous E = mc equation predicts that energy has mass, and this includes heat energy. If you take two otherwise identical objects, each containing exacLythe same number of atoms,ffie hot object does in fact weigh slightly more than the cold one.
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From page 104... ...
How fortunate it is that he did not have access to modern mathematical techniques and computers. Because we now knowthat just as a tedhnique called Fourier analysis can approximate a two-dimensional graph as a sum of an infinite series of sine waves (a technique often used in applied mathematics and engineering)
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From page 105... ...
Scientists would struggle to explain how, although Me invisible arms proper ing them moved faster than light, Me motions of the epic,vdes fortunately always seemed to cancel at Me right moments, so that Me actual planets never broke Me speed limit. Do epicycles remind you at all of the imaginary waves of quantum?
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