The moment when I release a bowling ball, with a full rack of pins at the other end, there are many variations as to what could happen. However, particularly in a close game–where simply getting a spare isn’t going to get it done–it really comes down to only two possibilities:
Either the ball will strike. Or the ball will not strike.
But it occurs to me that, at the moment of release, the ball has both struck and not struck. Both possibilities exist simultaneously.
I call it Schrodinger’s Balls.
PAD
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Well as a Jayhawk fan I can say it sucks Schrodinger’s Basketballs right now.
TaC
It takes some huge balls to come up with a theory like that.
Here’s another one for you:
Take a standard deck of playing cards, shuffle, then lay them, one at a time, face up on a table so that, when you are done, you have an array.
What are the odds of you getting that particular array? (I’ll save you the math; they are one in 52 factorial [52 X 51 X 50 X 49…X 1].) But, despite these odds, believe it or not, you hit it on the first try!
Now, if you only could apply this principle to Powerball.
Supposedly, the odds are so great that every deck that has ever been shuffled in the history of the world has had a unique arrangement of cards. So every time you shuffle the deck, you’re creating something that’s never been seen before.
Rob,
If we had 100 billion decks being shuffled and each deck was shuffled once a minute. we are still looking at an incomprehensible number of years before all permutations will have been dealt. Or to put it into perspective if those hundred billion decks started at the dawn of time it would be 1 followed by 41 zeroes times the 15 billion years the universe has been in existence. Or for those that believe the universe is 6,000 years old, 2 followed by 47 zeroes times that.
I hope your theory makes it onto THE BIG BANG THEORY, sir!
Ah, but there is a flaw in your theory. There’s always the chance of both happening at the same time…
Namely, the ball goes into the next lane and hits THOSE pins instead.
This from a guy who sucks at bowling so bad that, even at bumper bowling, still managed to get gutter balls.
I chuckled a bit last night watching “House” when I saw House’s screen name on a game was “Occam’s Chainsaw”
I’d change that to ‘the moment before’ the release. Because once you let go, the major factors are already in play and only one outcome is possible (barring some sudden, unlikely obstruction cropping up on the lane, say a wayward mouse or low flying European Swallow). But, until you do let go, a tiny variation could cause it to go either way.
No, I don’t think so. There are still thinks you can do before the release that could impact on the result. Once the die is cast, so to speak, that is when anything is possible, particularly because of the variables presented by the oil pattern itself. To say that only one outcome is possible once the ball is released is simply incorrect.
PAD
Never bowled competitively, obviously, so … “oil pattern”?
OK: Time finally to be serious.
The physics principles being mentioned here concern two very different things. It’s true that bowling balls have a wave equation no different in form from that attendant to subatomic particles, but such equations simply are so massive that the principles of quantum physics don’t need to be applied. Yes, there’s oil on the lanes, and maybe one of the pins wobbled a little off center when it was set, and these could affect the outcome.
However, the critical point is that all of these variables can be known ex ante, perhaps by God playing with his supercomputer. So, once the system becomes closed, probably with actual release of the ball but certainly at some point, then the result is a done deal (the probability of strike v. no strike becomes 1 in 1). Similarly with my deck of cards: The probability of getting a particular array ex ante are astronomically small, but once the decision is made to deal the deck, the probability of getting some array is almost 1 in 1 (you could have a heart attack during the deal, so the odds here never are perfect unity).
The principle behind the quantum is very different. Here, the problem lies in the limits on our knowledge imposed by Planck’s constant (which leads to Heisenberg uncertainty). The reason the quantum is applicable to subatomic particles is that, with them, there is NOTHING one can do to close the system. There is no way to “throw the ball” such as to guarantee a result. Any observation made necessarily adds enough extraneous information to the wave equation that it generates an entirely new (and significant) wave equation. Not God, himself, with the best crystal ball he’s got, can predict the results apodictically. So, in the case of electrons, &c., the problem can be approached ONLY probabilistically, and that’s NOT the same principle affecting the outcome of something so massive as a bowling ball.
More Schrodingeresque would be to put a curtain up in front of the pins, then you would roll both a strike and a gutter ball simultaneously.
I’ve done that, actually. I threw a ball that guttered and then, because of the backspin and angle, bounced out of the gutter and struck. The strike didn’t count since the ball was dead once it went into the channel, but still…
PAD
Given the odds against managing that sort of a ‘shot’, it seems to me they should give a double score for it. Never happen of course.
If my own personal demon wasn’t Schrodinger’s Prop Tardis, maybe I’d find this funny…
It’s about time someone addressed the Ten-Pin Jargon Interpretation.
Given the levels of probability involved in the strike/no-strike scenario (actual number of pins that fall, etc.) the likelihood of non-strike is actually greater than a strike, although other factors can sway these odds, such as the skill level of the individual throwing the ball.
In order for it to be a true Schroedinger-type event, no perceptible data from the event can be allowed. Some form of sound screen would be needed in addition to the vision-blocking mechanism, along with something to hinder vibration, as the impact (or lack thereof) of ball-to-pin(s) would be transmitted along the floor.
Also, in order for a true strike/non-strike superposition scenario, barriers would need to be erected to prevent the ball from skipping into the adjoining lanes.
Finally, the ball would likely have to be thrown in such a way that, in an otherwise normal setting, a strike would most likely result.
Remember, Schroedinger’s argument only holds weight in a situation where the likelihood of one outcome over another is otherwise certain given an observed event. Only the lack of observation keeps the event in a state of flux.
And yes, I’m putting WAY too much thought into this.
And, re-reading your post, PAD, yes. Both outcomes are possible, but isn’t the point to both strike and not-strike at the same time?
And after re-re-reading your post, that’s exactly what you said. I’m going to bed now.
Too much thought? Hey, there might be a PhD dissertation in this. Somewhere. Somehow. Just don’t ask me in which field.
not to be Too pedantic about this but as I see it there are a lot more possibilites that are present at the moment the ball is set into play. Leaving aside for a moment the interactions of pins with one another and the relative uncertainty of the ball only being able to hit certain pins by interacting with other ones prior, there remain ten distinct objects which each have two distinct states, knocked over or standing, and we will assume for simplicities sake that each of them has a random ability to be in either state reducing the given equation to a 50 50 chance for each pin. So far from the simplistic two simultaneous happenstances posed by Schrodinger’s cat, Schrodinger’s Balls must posit the existence of a superposition of 1024 (2^10) simultaneous happenings which will only collapse into a single existence when the ball makes contact.
bravo Peter, Physicists and mathematicians will be analyzing the implications of this for years
A good bowler doesn’t blame his equipment if he doesn’t throw a strike. You don’t see Norm Duke or Pete Weber blaiming Storm Bowling because they couldn’t strike during crunch time. Now, look. You are already on the lest populated side of the approach. Just stroke your shot, hit your mark and walk off the approach. You can’t always strike when you want to. Who you think you are, Jeff Campbell of New Castle, Pennsylvania? (Google him.) LOL!!!
Thank you for that rant that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I wrote.
PAD
Ah, but under the Many-Lanes hypothesis spinning out of Schrodinger’s Balls, there exists some reality in which that rant DOES relate to what you wrote.