skip to main content
Caltech

Quantum Spacetime Group Seminar

Tuesday, January 16, 2018
10:30am to 12:00pm
Add to Cal
Lauritsen 469
Possibilities for Probabilities and Reasoning about Boltzmann Brains
Don Page, University of Alberta,

In ordinary situations involving a small part of the universe, Born's rule seems to work well for calculating probabilities of observations
in quantum theory.  However, there are a number of reasons for believing that it is not adequate for many cosmological purposes.
Here a number of possible generalizations of Born's rule are discussed, explaining why they are consistent with the present
statistical support for Born's rule in ordinary situations but can help solve various cosmological problems.  One application is to
Boltzmann brains, which can be kept at bay by Bayesian reasoning.