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No. The probability of an event is never, ever negative, even in quantum. We use the complex scalar product, c x c^*, to get probabilities, and those are necess
by Attrecomet 4y ago
No. The probability of an event is never, ever negative, even in quantum. We use the complex scalar product, c x c^*, to get probabilities, and those are necessarily positive even for complex numbers. The same is true for the generalization to functions required in quantum mechanics.
If your wave function at point (0,0,0) were i x delta(0) (i.e. a point-like particle perfectly located at the three-dimensional origin), the probability of finding the particle there isn't i^2, but i x i^* = i x (-i) = 1.
- femto 4y agoThanks!
- prof-dr-ir 4y agoSurely that probability should be i x delta(0) x (-i) x delta(0) so, you know, your everyday squared Dirac delta function.
- Attrecomet 4y agoI secretly did the integration over space to go from the probability density to the probability, so the deltas are integrated out :P Doing calculations over text-based comments is so painful that I gloss over a lot, in the expectation that this isn't the right place to talk about anything but vague ideas anyway.