What is the relationship between quantum states and the size of the universe?

trfinck
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Hey everyone,

so I recently watched a vid that talked about Googol and googolplex sized universes, and their implications quantum mechanically. Supposedly, the number of quantum states that the particles that make up our body can make is something like 10^10^70.

The physicist then said that assuming we lived in a Universe with the radius of a googolplex, that we would see a repetition of ourselves somewhere in the Universe.

I understand the concepts of what he's saying, I'd just like some math to understand how one could assume the number of quantum states of particles 1 cubic meters.


Thanks!
 
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You mean assume the radius of the universe is 1 googolplex metres, or 1 googolplex quantum particles?
 
Yeah radius of the universe would be 1 googolplex metres.

Here's a link to the video I watched,

http://www.numberphile.com/videos/googolplex.html
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!
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