What is Stochastic Overflow? | Carl Sagan

[mabauti]

In his book "The Demon-Haunted World" Carl Sagan talks about this, I wonder what kind of physics phenom is that.

t.i.a.

 

[georgej116]

Can you provide some context in which that term was used?

 

[mabauti]

In the book, he was talking about the possibility that a car can travel by itself through a wall an the appear on the street , and though this is possible, it requires a stochastic overflow condition, which is larger the age of the universe.

 

[mabauti]

chapter 17 : The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might
happen tomorrow.