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> qm seems to have negative probabilities in some contexts This is actually how QM is described to people who study probability theory: as the extension of pro
by mikorym 7y ago
> qm seems to have negative probabilities in some contexts
This is actually how QM is described to people who study probability theory: as the extension of probability theory to include negative probabilities.
- 317070 7y agoBut that does not make a whole lot of sense though. What does it mean to have negative probability? Can you sample from negative probability? Also on a more fundamental level. If you define probability coming from the idea of Dutch books (which is how I think about probabilities), then it is really easy to show that there should be no such thing as a negative probability. I like the description in the article a lot better than the idea of 'magical' negative probabilities.
- skat20phys 7y agoNegative probabilities interestingly are showing up in various other realms. There seems to be converging interest in the topic from a number of areas. For example, in relating Bayesian inference to algorithmic complexity-based inference: https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.7116 https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.7116 I've also read some interpretations of negative probabilities in terms of erroneous values. For example, if you're sampling observations, and a machine error causes an anomalous value to appear in the data. This I don't know I completely intuit but there are interpretations of negative probabilities outside of QM. My sense is that they will eventually be accepted akin to imaginary numbers or something but that's just a hunch and I could be wrong.