Having been to a couple of events in the past week attended by a bunch of nerds (of which I was proudly one) I have had quoted to me on several occasions (coincidently I am sure ... well, as sure as I can be anyway) the old adage than "anything is statistically possible it is just some things are highly improbable".
I am a scientist, I am not a bad mathematician and I use descriptive statistics virtually every day (my credentials) but I have a bit of a problem with this. Is it really true that if I drop an object that statistically at some point it will go up and not down? I think this is just playing numerical semantics (if the term numerical semantics is not just playing semantics itself). Surely there is a mechanism by which objects fall (to do with gravity) and there is no known way gravity can suddenly become anti-gravity. Certainly at the quantum level, statistical phenomena are well established. Radioactive decay is, for example, statistically random. Putting statistics into the micro-world is not the same as the macro-world surely.
Unless someone comes up with a really convincing argument, I am beginning to wonder if this is not just a technical myth that has been quoted so often we are all beginning to believe it. I therefore reserve my right to challenge it, like any good skeptic should.
Discuss
There is a small chance that the molecules of air underneath the object will, because of a freak arrangement of wind, blow the object upwards. Not a very big chance.
That's cheating. The proposition is that if you wait long enough (or repeat the experiment enough times) anything is statistically possible and at some point gravity will suddenly work in reverse.Originally Posted by PhysBang
When I was cooking breakfast once, my boat fell off a wave and egg was subsequently found on the deck head above the cooker. Not cheating - just not stating the rules properly
EDIT:
OK, I've just realised. The egg didn't go up - the world (from the egg's perspective) came down quicker than the egg did. Sorry!
Last edited by chaggle; 15th September 2009 at 09:15 PM. Reason: one whisky too many
This isn't something that follows from either Newtonian Universal Gravity or General Relativity, as far as I can tell; these theories simply aren't statistical in nature. It may be true for some quantum theories of gravity.
Two points here. First that currently there is no quantum theory of gravity. Secondly, in respect to this particular debate, I am not specifically referring to gravity but using it as an example. I go back to the original premise "I have had quoted to me on several occasions the old adage that anything is statistically possible it is just some things are highly improbable".
I think Douglas Adams touched upon this with the infinite improbability drive and the spontaneous appearance of a bowl of petunias and a whale.
I am challenging the premise of everything is possible, but some things are just highly improbable. The sudden up instead of down of gravity seems just as impossible to me as the spontaneous appearance of a bowl of petunias. This may be personal incredulity, but convince me otherwise!
Last edited by Graham Lappin; 16th September 2009 at 04:56 AM.
Thank you Chaggle, good stuff. Up or down is relative to your boat or otherwise but was this statistics or just wave theory.When I was cooking breakfast once, my boat fell off a wave and egg was subsequently found on the deck head above the cooker. Not cheating - just not stating the rules properly
EDIT:
OK, I've just realised. The egg didn't go up - the world (from the egg's perspective) came down quicker than the egg did. Sorry!
I'm enjoying the thread but unfortunately it's too out my depth to say anything other than that I'm enjoying it!
Oh.... except that as an ex rider I tend to assume 'down' is the general direction when parting company with a saddle! I'd dearly love to see the exception.
The Whale and petunias in HHGG appear in a work of fiction where time travel, inter-dimensional travel, etc, are common. DNA was an atheist but God is referenced as a real character in his HHGG books. He enjoyed playing with, and subverting, other people's ideas about life, the universe and everything.
In the real world something is only statistically possible if it is possible. There is not a tiny % chance that the bonus ball will be 67 because there isn't a 67. Nothing we (humanity) have ever seen or experienced suggests that impossible things are actually just very unlikely.
If I drop a coin a million times it is possible that it will land on its edge at least once, because this is very unlikely but possible. It is possible that I will get far more heads than tails, very unlikely but possible. It will not fly upwards or turn into a paperclip because these things are impossible.
I agree with you that this is just a myth. Of no more value than "duck's quacks don't echo" or "we only use 10% of our brains".
Last edited by Croydon Bob; 16th September 2009 at 10:30 AM. Reason: missing " ' "
The word 'known' is key here. Scientific theory is based on evidence, not the other way round. Therefore, it is incorrect to assume that any theory will work all the time in all circumstances (though for practical puroise we do make that assumption). Indeed, we know that all theories will be replaced eventually by newer versions that cover the most recent observations. A new observation, like an object going up not down, could change everything.
We might, for instance, discover that gravity does indeed depend on statistical probability, like quantum mechanics. If I had to bet whether relativity or QM, which cannot currently be fitted together, was correct, I'd always go for the latter.
Yes, it's a myth. As Croydon Bob says, some things simply aren't possible.
In addition, there's a big problem with "statistically" possible. Statistics only applies to large numbers of events ("large" may of course vary depending on the details), not to individual events. If you have an event that can only occur once, or a small number of times, statistics are irrelevant. For example, if you drop a plate and smash it, you can only do so once. The term "statistically possible" is meaningless applied to this event, because statistics can say nothing whatsoever about it.
That's a very interesting thought. Einstein was not happy about the idea that the physical world was statistical (God does not play dice... often misquoted and misunderstood). The idea that unification of quantum and relativity ends up with a statistical gravity is not unrealistic by any means. It's what we don't know that's often more fascinating than what we understand.
I agree with the general opinion here that the opening statement is not true. Some things are not statistically possible. But people like general statements and accept them despite their inaccuracy. No doubt this one derives from the notion that many things which we do no suspect are indeed statistically possible although unlikely."anything is statistically possible it is just some things are highly improbable".
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Unless someone comes up with a really convincing argument, I am beginning to wonder if this is not just a technical myth that has been quoted so often we are all beginning to believe it. I therefore reserve my right to challenge it, like any good skeptic should.
Discuss
As an aside, I include a joke cribbed from another forum, which is a comment about physicists (I include myself here) as well as statistical probabilities:
A physicist goes into a bar every night, sits down, and orders two drinks. One he drinks himself, and the other he sets in front of the empty bar stool next to him. After a few weeks of this, the bartender asks, 'you're in here every night, and you always buy two drinks. Why do you always leave a drink in front of the empty stool?' The physisist respond, 'you see, due to the complex laws of quantum mechanics, there's a chance that a beautiful woman will suddenly appear atop the stool. She'll see the drink and maybe we'll hit it off.' The bartender says, 'But every night, the bar is full of beautiful young single women! Why not just walk up to them and ask one out? Maybe she'll say yes.' To which the physicist responds, 'yeah, but what's the chance of that ?'
Statistical jokes are far a few between
I have to admit that I can't remember if I have posted these little snippets previously and I am too lazy to go through all my posts to check - so here goes (with apologies if I am repeating myself).
There was a statistician that calculated that the chances of any plane he boarded having a bomb on board was a million to one. The chances it had two bombs on board however, was ten million to one. He therefore always carried his own bomb when flying just to keep on the safe side.
A pure mathematician and a statistician were trying to chat up the same woman. She was not too interested in either and so said, "both of you stand against that wall (several meters away) and each of you walk towards me, covering half the distance and then stop. Then walk towards me again for half the remaining distance and stop again. Keeping doing this and I will have sex with the first one to reach me". The pure mathematician replied that this was a simple exponential regression and it was obvious that neither of them would reach her and so he left in disgust. The statistician however, said that he too knew it was an exponential regression but he reckoned he could get close enough that it would not make any significant difference.
Is this thread becoming dumbed down?
Getting back to the original topic, I was at the recording of the 217th Skeptic's Guide to the Universe in New York. I put a short movie on
http://web.me.com/oryctolagus/NECSS/Movie1.html
Steve Novella says that there is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents every molecule of air spontaneously jumping into "this cup". Now I see this as a little different to the original point regarding gravity. I can see no plausible mechanism by which gravity suddenly becomes anti-gravity (not withstanding the point that this is current understanding).
Steve Novella's claim is perhaps a little different as with the statistical movement of gas molecules, there is no mechanism to prevent all the molecules ending up "in the cup". I ask the question again in this context however, is this just playing with the statistics or, given sufficient time, should we expect this to occur in reality?
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