IMPOSSIBLE

NO PHYSICAL PHENOMENON HAS THE ODDS OF BEING 0% OR 100%.

I am willing to defend this statement. Throw your best at me.

THREAD UPDATE

Rule #4: No guts no glory.

If I confuse you with something or if I make you feel like I'm making things up, then remember the time your algebra teacher told you about the square root of negative one. Didn't make much sense to just call it $"i"$ now did it? But now you probably know what $i$ really means. Well, it's same with me. Noone gets it right away, especially not when it comes to things like IMPOSSIBLE being impossible.

So spill your guts out and claim your glory! If you don't get it, ask about it. I'm here.

Let's start us off with one:

Claim: "The odds of throwing a yathzee with 1854 ordinary d6's are 100%."

Defense: "Of 1584 dice, 1560 land on their edges and the other 24 are 4 of each number, but that is really unlikely going to happen."

Example taken from a flame war started by my original claim in YouTube comments section on THIS video - which in turn inspired this note. My comment is by name OverLordGoldDragon. WARNING: adult language employed.

And don't take it easy on me. I'm tough ;)

Rules and Guidelines:

HINT: I suggest you do NOT read #3. But if in the comments section I have to defend my claims, I WILL refer to it.

I am willing to defend only phenomenon in physical universe. I won't argue why $1+1$ has the odds of being $3$ .
No getting mad if I prove you wrong

. 3. Logical limitations and paradoxes are NOT allowed.

Ex: "Roll a dice. There is a 100% chance that the result of the dice will indicate a number that, if you end up seeing the result, is inferior to a googolplex." Here, when you say "if," you are assuming that a certain process MUST HAPPEN. That is, you are placing constraints upon what can and cannot happen.

Also, things like "What are the odds of a 50N cart being accelerated to 2m/s^2 from a state of complete rest (internal energy 0) without application of any force" are not allowed. But that's because you lay a limit on it - you eliminated multiple possibilities.

Also, no logical paradoxes. No: "What are the odds of me kicking object A if I never kick object A?" Logical paradoxes are mathematical 0s and 100s: OUTRULED. (But most things you consider paradoxal in fact aren't. For example the scenario: "What are the odds of me being dead and alive at the same time?" is not a paradox. So bring it on (but if it does end up being one, I wrote it here so yeah you can't get me xD)

If you read this anyway do NOT let this hamper your imagination! You can still say things like "throw an apple so far it hits the moon" or "blow up the Sun by looking at it" - those aren't logical paradoxes or limitations. A logical limitation or paradox would be "throw an apple without exerting force on it" or ... well you get it. I can't think of too many things that are impossible. But I bet you can ;)

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Just Great!

Great note & quote at the end!!!!!

Ameya Salankar - 6 years, 9 months ago

Easy Math Editor

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Comments

What are the odds of this comment causing the US nuclear arsenal to detonate :)

Tan Li Xuan - 6 years, 9 months ago

Some US personnel looks at it and laughs.

He tells his colleagues and they take it seriously, having read about @John Muradeli and his utter genius.

They start to fight.

The president is enraged that they are wasting their time.

The president wastes his own time.

He does not pay attention to a development in some war (Ukraine?)

He is too late to stop riots from getting out of control. Local police can do nothing.

The riots spread and eventually, the whole of East Europe is calling for war.

The president faces a dilemma: To confront or not to confront, that is the question.

The US is attacked.

The president's only hope for survival: use his nuclear weapons.

The nuclear arsenal detonates.

Like I said, it is unlikely, but that does show $P$ is not $0$ . :D

Yuxuan Seah - 6 years, 9 months ago

You win :D

HAHA WHOA! This is Brilliant! Not what I had in mind but LOLLZ! This is so much better!

But for the record him typing a comment COULD cause US nuclear arsenal to detonate, one through a more feasible way and another through a... I'll invent a new constant here: $c$ . You know how when you integrate you write $C$ ? Well now when you calculate probabilities you always do this:

Odds of rolling a 1 on a 6 die? $\frac{1}{6}+ c$ .

Cool name for it is still in development...

Theorems and proofs behind it are still in development...

John M. - 6 years, 9 months ago

Define the set S of all outcomes of an event E. It should be well defined since we can simply construct it by the rule: if an outcome of E is not in S, add it to S. What is the probability E having an outcome in the set S?

If it would be less than 1, you have at least one outcome not in the set S. But all outcomes are in S as per the assumption. So it can't be less than 1. So it must be equal to 1.

I see no reason why this wouldn't be applicable to physical processes. Physical events have outcomes, so the set S will exist and be non-empty.

Alces Mire - 6 years, 9 months ago

This is a little confusing: can you rephrase a bit? And I see you're resorting to paradoxes. Please do the following:

Rephrase your argument
Give a physical example based on the argument

Also, most of the things people consider as "paradoxes" aren't: Zeno's Achilles Paradox is not a paradox. The Can God Create a Rock He Can't Lift (assuming he's OMNIPOTENT)? - and darn it a lot of people beat me to it. But don't read their answers. Try to think for yourself. I also have my answer that radically differs from theirs. Also, the going-back-in-time paradox - paradox only for those who never met quantum mechanics. But now I'm blabbing too much. Let's stick to your argument.

I'll reply sometime later. Sorry for potential delays.

CHeers

It's not a paradox it's a tautology, a statement that is always true.

A simpler but very related case.

Assume an event E with one possible outcome O. P(O) means the probability of O happening. P(¬O) means the probability of O not happening. This is the complement of P(O) and is per definition 1-P(O).

What's the probability that the outcome of E is either O or not O? In logic terms, what is: P(O) + (1 - P(O)) It's obviously equal to one.

So, What's the probability of a specific photon being here or somewhere else? What's the probability of an electron having spin up or some other state? What's the probability of getting a 4 or not a 4 with a dice throw? All these are equivalent to the logical case and the probability is 1 here as well.

@Alces Mire – !!!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!! - LONG TEXT AHEAD

(I suggest you run an epic music in the background while reading this - this can get frustrating)

Well, you've done it. You've struck the very core of general fundamental reasoning. Now I have to bring out the big boys. But the thing is, I can't. Not if I'm first not sure that we can be at least half on the same page. For you to comprehend with what I'm going to write, you need to know about:

Complex Probability - Hard

10 Dimensions of Space-Time - Med

Quantum Mechanics - some basic and advanced principles (Spacetime, Multiverse, Fundamental Forces, etc. - just awfully long

Now obviously you don't need to go through all of them (certainly not the last one), but this is just a heads up to what I'm going to use here.

EDIT: I've replaced the necessity of knowing all this with a very long text instead. Enjoy.

Though I strongly recommend going through the last playlist on your free time, we can do without it. Let's dive in:

Now, even if you clicked on the first link, you can tell that a lot, A LOT of crazy math and physics is being involved. But I'll try to keep it simple. First, let me solve one very intriguing paradox:

"Can God create a rock he cannot lift?"

Now, believers, claiming God is omnipotent, are faced with a conundrum: if he can, then he's not omnipotent. If he can't, then he's not omnipotent. So, then, as far as we're concerned with odds, the problem is rephrased as follows:

"What are the odds of an omnipotent God creating a rock he cannot lift and still remain omnipotent?"

IMPOSSIBLE? I think not. In fact, solutions have been proposed: Wiki, and it is infact a really good one. But instead of tackling the problem the way we'd expect, it begins to deconstruct the meaning of the original question and point out its flaws via logical loopholes, limitations, and paradoxes (stuff you guys love to do a lot). Here's how I approach the problem.

Yes he can. $\ne 100$ , $\ne 0$ .

Now the question becomes HOW. And the answer comes in an awful complexity:

Schrodinger's Cat

A quick summary on the issue:

gavno

Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

Now this cannot be fully tackled without quantum entanglement, but we don't need to. Instead, let's use the most powerful weapon created by humans: thinking.

If you know anything in quantum mechanics, you know that an electron can be up or down. You also know that it can be both up and down. This is the principle upon which Quantum Computing will shape the world by approximately 2049 (the latest upper estimate). And thus, this is already dealing with complex probability. But not from an intuitive perspective. Back to the God problem:

Here's one of God's approaches to the problem (since I'm not God I cannot say that this is THE approach):

Lock himself in a box with a rock.
State that in 60 seconds he'll either lift the rock or he won't.

60 seconds later...

Done.

WHAT HAPPENED:

Since you can't observe what happened, he both lifted the rock and he didn't. But we're concerned with whether he CAN not DOES, and thus, since he did, he COULD, and there - done.

If you're satisfied with this explanation, stop reading here. If you aren't, take a deep breath... DIVE:

God:

Create a 4D Space-Time-Energy Universe A.
Create a 4D Space-Time-Energy Universe B.
Entangle Universe A and Universe B through a 5D link - let's call this the 5D Multiverse. (To make sense of this, consider the scenario: You (a 4D entity) are an artist. You draw on a sheet of paper (assume it's 2D). The inhabitants (3D entities (a dimension of time is required to allow occurrence of events) of the 2D realm are unable to interact your realm, but you can observe/change theirs. By taking another sheet of paper and placing it on top of the first, you've just linked the two universes through the 3rd (spatial) dimension (or 4D space-time dimension). And you didn't even have to do that. The sheet simply existing in your 4D realm was enough to have those two be linked in some way. This can get very complicated, but I hope you get the gist. For example, if the sheet of paper existed in another, different 4D universe, it would not be linked with the other sheet of paper (at least it wouldn't be a 4D link)).
Create a duplicate of himself and place it in Universe A.
Create a duplicate of himself and place it in Universe B.
In Universe A: Create a rock. Lift it.
In Universe B. Create the same rock. Be unable to lift it.

Now, let's deconstruct the condition "create a rock he cannot lift." What this is saying, is:

If God lifts the rock, he's not omnipotent.

If God doesn't lift the rock, he's not omnipotent.

If God creates a rock he can lift, he didn't create a rock he can't lift.

If God doesn't create a rock he can lift, he created a rock he can't lift.

ORR

If God creates a rock he can't lift $(A)$ , and lifts it ( $B$ ), he's omnipotent.

HOW IT WORKS:

Since Universe A and Universe B are entangled, the rocks in both universes are also entangled - or, it's one and the same rock. Since in Universe A he satisfies condition $(A)$ , and in Universe B he satisfies condition $(B)$ , then he has satisfied both of the conditions. In other words, since it's the same rock, the act of him lifting the rock and him not lifting the rock are both equally registered [in quantum mechanics the state of two things being one is called quantum superposition (or, have both happened, or, have taken place, etc.). So in one case, he created a rock he couldn't lift, and in another case he lifted it. But now since both cases are equally real, he's done it: he created a rock he cannot lift, and then he lifted it. But now you're asking "But what happened to the reality where God didn't (couldn't) lift the rock?" That's the key: it's irrelevant. The problem is concerned with the word CAN, meaning, at any means necessary, even if it means that in one of the cases he doesn't do it. It's just like flipping a coin: only because you didn't flip heads the first time doesn't mean you can't flip tails. It just means that this one time you DIDN'T, but you still CAN.

But the greater concern here is probably the fact that I've mashed events in my favor: I took scenario A, discarded its opposite, then I took scenario B and discarded its opposite. It's as if I intentionally chose to discard the fact that in the universe where condition A is satisfied its counterpart isn't, and same for B. But that's not what happened: that's what it seems to have happened. If you start to think about it, it'll make more sense - in time. Remember, quantum physics is so abstract that even Richard Feynman said: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

'But this isn't quantum - you're talking Universes here - this is as far from quantum as you can get'

Oh, but quantum principles can apply on all scales, big or small. It's just that, after all, without omnipotent God, the odds of something such as two Universes being entangled is so small, that...

So, what does this have to do with probability? The fact that it isn't just expressed by $\frac{want}{can}$ . This probably involves complex probability SOMEHOW, but I have NO DARN CLUE on how. Since you found a way to destroy all real probabilities, I've resorted to complex ones. And here's what I think complex probability might be:

So, you know how this expression $l=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}$ goes ape when $v>c$ ? Relativity predicts time travel when v>c. What does this mean? Well, this means that whatever the particle, is now traveling in time-space rather than space-time. Or, it's traveling IN THE 5TH DIMENSION. Or, it just took a step up. It broke through the dimension.

So, just as whatever condition you specified, it is a dimension - a box you can't get out of. So I guess $i$ Probability is just breaking out of that dimension and 'thinking outside the box' - doing something you didn't expect it to - loopholing your laws. I'm probably smoking lotsa bull right now, but this is what happens when you type for 2 hours straight. Ouch.

I'll probably get back to this cause my mind is tired now, lol... First try to digest what I've said. I think it's a lot of food for thought.

And of course, don't forget the evolution of intelligence:

Man thought you can't solve $4x+20=0$ . Man thought Negative Numbers - Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art - Han Dynasty (202-BC - AD 220).

Man thought you can't do $\sqrt{-25}$ . Man thoughtImaginary Numbers - Rafael Bombelli, 1572.

Man thought you can't divide by zero. Man thought Riemann Sphere - Bernhard Riemann - 19th century.

Wolfram|Alpha thought

Man thought $|x|<0$ has no solutions. Somewhere far in the future... Man thought

omg omg

... whatever the heck that is.

If you've come THIS FAR, I'd like to thank you very much for being a great reader. I do apologize if I've made you more confused than when you came here, but I hope this was worth your time and you got at least something of worth out of it. If I've missed something, please do not hesitate to ask (and I do realize I completely digressed from your question about the photons and stuff, but I think you can figure it out yourself now that you (hopefully) have all this knowledge, that those aren't 1s and 0s.)

The bottom line is, the evolution of intellect has proven itself many many times greater than common belief of what was considered possible and impossible. After all, a fact is only as factual as the people who label it as one:

Fact - a phenomenon about which competent observers who have made a series of observations are in agreement" - Paul G. Hewitt - Conceptual Physics, Special Edition Series.

So let time pass, and our intellects evolve with it, hopefully fast enough that we'll be on Mars before the Earth is nuked to pieces.

Thank you for reading, and have a great day.

If the price of avoiding non-locality is to make an intuitive explanation impossible, one has to ask whether the cost is too great. - David Bohm, 20th century.

dsfsyo dsfsyo

"Nothing is impossible, unless it violates the laws of existence." -John Muradeli, 21st century.

@John M. – What evil have I released upon the world... Is this what opening Pandora's box feels like?

@Alces Mire – LOL...

I'll take that as a compliment.

Thank you :)

@Alces Mire – But wait so did you get what I said or were you like what the heck is this throughout the whole reading session? Gimme some feedback so I can improve or something LOL... And we can talk about opening Pandora's boxes too (whatever that is) if you want

@John M. – @John Muradeli,

@John M. – Hmm, what if I say that it is impossible for God to do those steps without creating two parallel universes?

Agnishom Chattopadhyay - 6 years, 9 months ago

@Agnishom Chattopadhyay – "Without" - placing a limitation = unacceptable.

And in addition, it's a paradox. You're saying do this without doing it. Logical twists aren't allowed. The reasons are posted all over this thread, but most relevantly in my last reply to Ryan Niu.

@Alces Mire – Ok, that's it. Now I have to rephrase my entire challenge. Gimme a few minutes, I'll get back to you shortly.

If you're referring to physical events, nothing is perfectly certain. Part of the problem is that there's always unavoidable ambiguity whenever one tries to make a clear determination whether or not a specific event has happened. That's why sometimes we have rioting on the streets because people can' t agree on exactly what has happened.

I think quantum theory does a pretty good job pointing out that physical reality is inherently probabilistic.

Michael Mendrin - 6 years, 9 months ago

Yeah you're right. But a lot of people have TONS of things on their list that they deem IMPOSSIBLE. Take this one from YouTube for example:

"+OverLordGoldDragon I can list you some things that have a 0% chance, even in the physical world.

You throw a ball upwards. There is a 0% chance that it will arrive to the moon, in 1 second or less. (First of all, it would need to go faster that the speed of light, which is believed to be impossible, but even if it were possible, it would just disintegrate before arriving to the moon).
You use electrolysis to get three separate atoms form H2O. There is a 0% chance that an H2O molecule will give you four atoms. (Atoms cannot just come from nowhere. Don't come to me with virtual particles because that has nothing to do with this).
You carefully do the double slit experiment (I heard you like quantum mechanics). There is a 0% chance that an electron will go through both slits when you are measuring it.

And now guess what? Negate all I said and you have 100% chances.

There is a 100% chance that the ball will not make it to the moon.
There is a 100% chance that you don't get 4 atoms
There is a 100% chance that the electron will not go through both slits when being measured."

Response:

"1. Spacetime leap: the shortest distance between any two points in spacetime is zero. http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/LIGHTCONE/minkowski.html

Virtual particles may maintain a prolonged period of existence in 4D plane by the use of negative energy. I can't cite this but look it up if you want, there are actually more ways than this to do it. Also, there are other possibilities.
In the 5th dimension the particle can leap through a 6th dimensional wormhole back to the moment of the event and go through the second slit. In the 6th dimension the electron can exist at infinitely many points in space, but not ALL the points (think sin(x) - infinitely many points, but never go above y=1)

..."

I had to cut off/censor some parts due to inappropriateness. And my comment goes on a bit longer but I cannot show it due to reasons. But you know where to find it if you want to see it.

I decided to put this Note on Brilliant to see if anyone can name a condition (complying to Rule #3) I cannot repent. YouTube keeps coming at me with stuff like "There's 100% chance I won't turn off my laptop tonight..." and "There's 0% chance of chickens raining on my roof" etc.

There are lots of things that are mathematically impossible, so that it'd be pointless to ask, "what are my chances of finding a real crystalline solid that exhibits non-planar 7-fold rotational symmetry in 3D space". So, we're reduced to posing hopefully absurd physical scenarios, such as, "what are my chances of witnessing one of the last protons to decay in this universe?" I'd say the chances of that is just about 0 as anything is ever going to get. How would you respond to this scenario?

@Michael Mendrin – Ok I have NO IDEA what that thing is with crystal - so I can't argue on that. But I'm sure if I knew what it was I could argue something (unless it's purely mathematical).

The thing with photons, oh this one's easy:

You are an artist. You live in 4D (this universe, for example). You draw on paper (2D). Paper people cannot touch you, but you can touch them. Paper people cannot observe you, but you can observe them. Bottom line: what happens on their plane is irrelevant to yours.

Now to your scenario:

Proton: 4D universe. You: 6D universe.

Problem solved :)

Btw if you have no clue what the heck I'm wobbling about, check out this EXCELLENT movie:

10 Dimensions - The Movie (1hr 40 mins)

It's excellent for beginners. But for advanced, seek me (yeah that's right I know more).

I'll get back to this one later, Michael. Thanks for the excellent example.

Laters

@John M. – It's "protons", not "photons". But that doesn't affect your response to it. And from what I understand about string theory, I need all my 10 dimensions to be a thing that's capable of doing things like "witnessing". Do or can I exist and function in just one dimension, for example?

However, but this is what I mean about ambiguity making determination of probabilities an inexact science. Quantum physicists are aware of the fact that time is no barrier to flow of information, i.e. things of the future can affect things today. Therefore, in theory, the last, final, decaying proton in this universe, happening some ${ 10 }^{ 100 }$ years from now, can be having an impact on me right now as I'm having my morning coffee, and so it could be said that I've just "witnessed" the death of that poor proton, and I've just now lost the argument with you about being able to concoct an "impossibility".

@Michael Mendrin – Darn I didn't even know that. LMAO...

If this can happen in 4th dimension alone, IMAGINE WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN THE 10TH DIMENSION!!?? And my understanding is only rock-solid uptill 7th dimension - then I need guidebooks.

Well, thanks for disproving yourself xD hahaha

@Michael Mendrin – The crystalline symmetry of real crystals is actually a really good example. And I wouldn't actually call that question pointless either.

When you put rule 3 into play, anything anyone can think of can happen, because the only way to dispute them is by logical limitations. For example, I can hit the moon with an apple if I set up a wormhole from where I am to the moon and throw the apple through the wormhole.

So I will try this: The probability that something will happen at anytime is 100%.

Ryan Niu - 6 years, 9 months ago

Um... dunno about that. Actually you don't need to set up the wormhole. By quantum probability, the apple can warp, on its own, to the moon (or anywhere else in the Universe). Now I can absolutely NOT explain how the heck this works, but Brian Greene does in his book "The Elegant Universe" and so does Roger Penrose in "The Road to Reality". They're both great books, especially the 2nd one (took 8 years of scientific genius to write).

Now, as for your 100%. Not true: Consider Planck Time. I actually derived this before I even knew there's such thing. I thought of this when I tried to derive a fundamental duration of time: what is the shortest time for a process to occur? Well, I thought, all process happens through motion. So I thought speed of light and planck length.

$s=\frac{d}{t} \Rightarrow t=\frac{d}{s}$

Now, I reasoned that the fastest speed traveled in shortest distance is the minimum time for a process to happen. So we have

$t_{min}=\frac{1.61619926 \times 10^{-35} m}{299 ,792 ,458 m / s}=5.3910632 \times 10^{-44}s$

So... in a way... any process taking less time than this would not be possible to observe/measure and thus no way of proving to be existent. So at ANY time, if this time lasts less than the planck time, is discounted from possibility. It's lots of quantum mechanics, people take courses and years and books to understand this stuff. More than I can put into a comment.

Alright I'm gonna speed off now. See you tomorrow. Thanks for the comment. Bye

Umm... by saying that it wouldn't be possible to observe anything shorter than said time, isn't that a logical limitation? Or does rule number 3 not apply to how we are going to observe/calculate the probability? If it doesn't, then that kinda doesn't make sense. If you exist in a place where logical limitations don't affect the event, then they probably shouldn't affect how you observe the event either.

Well, until you reply, I'll probably go check out the books you mentioned. I've got nothing else to do anyway. Have fun at whatever you are going to do for the rest of the day today!

@Ryan Niu – Oh and also, if you do manage to prove that nothing is 0% or 100%, then that's a paradox, because then I could say: The probability that "no thing has the odds of being 0 or 100%" is 100%. So basically, by proving your point, you have also disproved your point at the same time.

@Ryan Niu – Ok I found a little time.

This one's short so I'll reply. Lemme go through briefly:

That's a logical phenomenon. As I've stated, I will only argue for a physical phenomenon. In math (logic) there are infinitely many things that have odds of 0 and 100, like $\sin{(x)}$ taking on the value of 2 given that the domain is restricted only to real numbers; or x+y=2 and x+y=3 being true at the same time given that x and y are real; etc.

Btw your latter statement - there's a very complex explanation I have to why that's not necessarily 100%. Look forward to that in the future.

Also, the observatory limitation is not logical - it is physical. A logical limitation would be you saying "The probability of something happening in the duration of 1 second is 100%." Now that's a logical limitation. (Though I can still loophole that; but later).

Bye for now.

@John M. – So basically what you're saying is if you provide the impossible (truly impossible, like you can't jump dimensions to solve type of impossible) condition in your probability, then it is a logical limitation. However, once it applies to the observer/after the event, it becomes a physical limitation.

You win the argument because of this. A probability is the likelihood of how often an event will occur. The conditions define what the event, or favorable outcome, is, and probability can be calculated by the favorable outcome divided by the total number of outcomes. I'm using the math definition as a general example, I'm sure real life probability is much more complicated then two numbers divided by each other. However, the idea of a favorable outcome still applies. For example, the probability that the weather will be rainy and the probability that the weather will be sunny will most likely be different (unless it is 50/50, then HALLELUJAH) because the conditions are different. Anyway, since you said no logical limits, basically, you said no conditions that limits the number of favorable outcomes to 0. Also, most (if not all)100%'s can be converted to or from a 0%, since they are technically opposites. So basically you can't make a probability of anything 0% or 100% without any limiting conditions, and you can't make anything certain since you won't be able to influence what happens after the event without mentioning it in your original statement.

TL;DR: You've set up this battle with your challengers' hands tied to their backs.

But before I go, I would still like to hear your explanations about the not necessarily 100% you mentioned you would explain later. Now THAT, is certainly something I would like to know.

@Ryan Niu – Try my reply to one of the comments here (you won't miss it). Then tell me if you still want a response to your challenge.

Cheers

@John M. – Just give me the basic rundown of the explanation. I read the BIG comment and I get most of it, but I can't see how it applies here so just explain the explanation here briefly.

After that I'll probably be going, I've got nothing else to argue. Or do I...?

@Ryan Niu – Let me copy your comment so I (or you) don't have to scroll too often:

Oh and also, if you do manage to prove that nothing is 0% or 100%, then that's a paradox, because then I could say: The probability that "no thing has the odds of being 0 or 100%" is 100%. So basically, by proving your point, you have also disproved your point at the same time.

Oh... this is going to be VERY hard. Let me try my best to make this as simple as possible:

Rephrasing what you've said:

If everything is possible, then it is possible that something is impossible...

furthermore,

If everything is possible, then it is possible that everything is impossible.

Now you see this is a pile of crap. We call these logical contradictions, and those sentences are said to make no sense. This is known as one of the Fundamental Laws of Logic.

Aristotle's Law of Noncontradiction states, that "One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time."

The key here is "IN THE SAME RESPECT AND AT THE SAME TIME." Remember what I said about logical limitations? Yeah, well this is about as logically limited as you can humanly possibly get. In fact it's so limited it violates a law of logic. And hence, since you argument is illogical, I don't have to answer it, because in some sense, it does not even exist. Now I don't really have a real explanation to why laws of logic have to be obeyed, but you can probably see the gist of it: THEY MAKE NO SENSE. Hm, maybe I can make sense of it...

So imagine if you asked me "What are the odds of flipping a two-sided coin, with heads on one side and tails on the other, and get a head?"

And I replied: "SpongeBob took my wallet."

You have as much right to decline this answer as I have of declining your argument.

Problem solved.

However, the complex explanation I was referring to, I thought you meant something like something being and not being something else at the same time or something like that... I misunderstood it. Sorry, lol...

But yeah I hope this makes sense. Tell me if it doesn't, we'll work it out ;)

What are the odds of taking 1 die, rolling it, and getting a Yahtzee. What are the odds of some action I take instantly causing Proxima Centauri to go supernova.

P.S. accelerating a cart that weighs 50N with 10N of force is entirely possible :/

P.P.S. I agreed with all the stuff you said on Youtube, I actually consider myself pretty smart and will actually read and think about any scenarios you give that prove me wrong. Please don't get impatient with me lol

John Shea - 6 years, 9 months ago

Sorry, I meant 'accelerating a cart with that force to 2 meters/second/second in 1 second'.

I found a little time, let's dive in:

Virtual Particles: several particles pop into existence and manifest themselves to 4 more dice precisely to form a Yahtzee. The odds? Less than once in a time from big bang to big crunch. But still odds. Now the odds can be improved dramatically if spacetime field may be manipulated as to slow space-time-energy interactions and excitations of virtual particles so that they exist for a period longer than planck's time. But humans are WAAAAAY off that technology - but one day (if we aren't wiped out by nuclear war), humans will achieve this. And then I guess they'll be considered Type 5 species.
Every time you move - you affect the entire universe. Your effect, of course, is the same as someone hearing your voice in China if you whisper in U.S. - get a phone. How do you get a phone that makes your movements affect the Universe significantly? lol I dunno. But if you refer to 'some action' as in any random pointless action such as you wobbling your hands or reading this reply, then... ummmm....... there could be some entity in another universe who's been observing you since birth and when he saw you reading this response he decided to blow up Proxima Centauri.

:D :D

but if I were to be serious, Proxima Centauri can go supernova at any moment. So can the sun. I don't possess the quantum mechanics knowledge or any weird stuff like that, but my source is Brian Greene. I learned most of these concepts from his PBS Nova Fabrics of the Cosmos videos - btw, ABSOLUTELY spectacular. Equally so great is the Elegant Universe on the playlist - check it out if you have time.

If you'd like more explanation from ME, wait I'll find some time next week maybe. Sorry for brevity and confusion, and thank you for reading.

I'll be back.

The cart is still easy lol. 50 N just refers to the normal force acting on the cart, it has nothing to do with friction. If it was on a surface with 0 friction, you could easily accelerate that 50N cart arbitrarily fast with an arbitrarily large amount of force . As for my examples, I meant that the one die that YOU roll gets a Yahtzee, but I realized after posting it that that is a restriction, so it doesn't really work. I do accept your answer for my second example though :( haha

On a side note, I'd just like to say that you are also putting restrictions on your "challenge" that make it impossible to beat. It's like saying "You can't name a negative number. Rule 1) it must be natural." Obviously this is just a fun thread, you can put restrictions on the challenges you propose and see what people come up with, but just because you won't consider mathematical ones, doesn't mean they don't exist. There is a 100% chance that 1 + 1 = 2, whether we want to consider it or not. That equation does have a 100% chance of being true. Again, I understand that, just for fun, you won't consider those because they are too obvious, but saying that NOTHING has a 100% chance isn't technically correct (until you apply the restrictions you came up with).

It's also kind of unfortunate that all these "impossible" scenarios only become possible with higher dimensions and unfathomably small chances lol. You can never argue that against someone who doesn't understand it xD

@John Shea – Check the thread and tell me if you can come up with anything else any more.

My challenge to you.

@John M. – I'm kinda new to forum type things rofl. By "thread" do you mean original post or other questions?

@John Shea – Well you can think of this entire page (technically called a "Note") as a thread. I was referring to the huge block of text I've typed (you won't miss it).

See what you think ;)

@John M. – I read it the other day, but I'm pretty sure I remember not getting it enough that I kinda gave up. Like it wasn't really worth trying to read again cuz I was like, "eh I kinda understand, but not enough to be able to argue for or against it" lol. But actually just 2 more things, one challenge and one remark.

My next challenge (again I don't think this violates any rules, let me know if it does): what are the odds of two electrons belonging to one atom having the same quantum numbers?

And my remark is that (I feel kinda bad now for criticizing again, but just my take) bringing in higher dimensions and alternate universes is kinda silly in my opinion for 2 reasons. The first is that (and I may actually be completely wrong, but as far as I know) they aren't proven to exist. If you just say "actually, they have been proven", then I'll agree to that ahah. But also being able to just use higher dimensions and other universes is silly because you can just say "assume another universe exists where the natural laws are different." Then even my above challenge is easy: "In an alternate universe, the exclusion principle doesn't exist." Also, I can easily argue that 1 + 1 = 3 (and I'm not dumb enough to not realize that dividing by (a - b) when a = b breaks your proof): "In an alternate universe, 1 is the symbol used to represent what we know as 3/2, and therefore in that universe, 1 + 1 is how we would write 1.5 + 1.5, and it therefore equals 3." It's just... I guess it's just that the alternate universe higher dimension reasons don't do it for me :( The "every die lands on its corner" was great, I thought of that right away, but the other ones are a tad pretentious :/

@John Shea – John Shea, you made this thread with that post. You've brought up some excellent concepts for discussion.

I don't have time right now, but I will DEFINITELY address everything you've said sometime later this week. Thank you very much, and have a great week.

Oh and P.S. I have no idea what quantum numbers are (I may seem like I know a lot of Quantum Physics, but mostly it's the product of my imagination, strong reasoning, and the videos I've watched on this playlist - but HEY! everything (99.9%) I said still makes sense. But more on that later).

@John M. – Yeah I mean I'm not arguing against you at all, I'm sure that these are all genuine possibilities (I just haven't done the research), they're just... well you know ;)

Also quantum numbers are basically just the ID numbers of electrons orbiting atoms that tell how much energy and such they have, and what their spins are. There is a fundamental law in chemistry (I'm a chem student PS :) that says that no 2 electrons in an atom can have the same quantum numbers (Pauli exclusion principle). I'm not quite this far into my education, but I believe that the exclusion principle comes from Schrodinger's equation itself.

Thanks for all the replies, and you have a good week too :)

I apologize for the delay. But I won't be replying till maybe later next week. I'm overloaded with work. Hope you can understand.

What encompasses your physical universe, hmm?

Physical existence is a more apt description. And it includes:

10 dimensions of reality:

Universe, Multiverse, Xenoverse, Hyperverse, Megaverse, Omniverse, Alphaverse, Omegaverse

This implies cosmic properties beyond Space-Time-Matter-Energy (already at 7D the fundamental forces may vary)

Any reality where $|x|<0$ has no solutions.

It does NOT include:

Realities that disobey laws of logic and mathematical order.
Realities in which $|x|<0$ has a defined solution.
Realities with hyperreal interactive physical properties
Anti-Existence

Ok if you're like what the heck is this guy about then just write below which bullet point or word you don't understand. I'll find time next week, but I replied just to give you food for thought/research. Meanwhile, I won't mind if you learn a lot about 10 Dimensions in THIS.

Thank you and have a great week.

Thanks for the links and info;

Are numbers a part of reality?

How do you distinguish between reality and illusions, then

@Agnishom Chattopadhyay – Oh my... those are like the most philosophical questions ever. I wish I could address all these, but... no time. If you'd like to know about whether numbers are a part of reality in depth, I suggest this book:

Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology

I haven't read it, but I'm sure it does a great job at explaining a lot more than just this question. But if you'd really like, I could write up several paragraphs to explain why they are, if you'd like.

Now, for the second question, uhh that is really subjective. The range of answers to this question is like the domain of $x^2$ lol... You must specify what reality and what illusions you're referring to, because if we consider all cases, one could write tomes of books (I know I could).

Ask on.

It is impossible for me to enter the event horizon of a black hole and then return home before dinner.

A Former Brilliant Member - 6 years, 9 months ago

A stable wormhole may form which will teleport you to your dinner table (probably not... probably).
If you're a 5D being, you can make a 6D leap through time-space and avoid the encounter with the black hole altogether.
If you're on a very quick spaceship, the black hole may be undergoing a merger with another black hole in which case the gravitational fields may fluctuate in a way as to allow occasional ripples under which the escape velocity is $<c$ , allowing you to escape.
The black hole can pop out of existence (but do NOT hope for this to happen).
I'll get back to this later.

Axiom 1 of AP Statistics: Extrapolation is Bad. Case Closed.

No, case not closed. It was never open.

I did not make this for people to prove me wrong. I opened this discussion to show people why possibilities often surpass imagination. Yes, you can roll a 7 with a 6 die; and yes, a Brilliant comment can cause a Nuclear war.

Now Ask on!

Knock yourselves out:

What is Random? Vsauce

John M. - 6 years, 8 months ago

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `\(` ... `\)` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$