To Properly Re∞ect Physicists' Reasoning about Randomness, We Also Need a Maxitive (Possibility) Measure and a General Notion of Boundedness
Andrei Finkelstein, Olga M. Kosheleva, Tanja Magoč, Erik Madrid, Scott A. Starks, Julio C. Urenda · 2007
According to the traditional probability theory, events with a positive but very small probability can occur (although very rarely). For example, from the purely mathematical viewpoint, it is possible that the thermal motion of all the molecules in a cofiee cup goes in the same direction, so this cup will start lifting up. In contrast, physicists believe that events with extremely small probability cannot occur. In this paper, we show that to get a consistent formalization of this belief, we need, in addition to the original probability measure, to also consider a maxitive (possibility) measure. We also show that the resulting advanced and somewhat di‐cult-to-described deflnition can be actually viewed as a particular case of something very natural: the general notion of boundedness. c