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by eigenket 840 days ago
This comment by Matt Kelly seems to be the most pertinent

> Regarding the similarity to a double slit interference pattern, what I found in my investigation (see my previous comment) is it was solely the result of the sorting algorithm used for the X coordinates of each possible outcome/weight. Ordering by the average X location results in a binomial distribution, but there are still ties to deal with. Applying secondary sorting to those based on the position of the left or rightmost X creates secondary binomial distributions within the main binomial distribution, similar to what Jonathan showed, except without all the spikiness because his example wasn’t consistently sorted in this manner.

> You can see the sorting I’m talking about by looking at the sorting of Xs in the output of weights in Jonathan’s double-slit examples. The bottom half is sorted as I stated, but the top half is somewhat out of order, corresponding to the spikes in the tallest curve in the center of the graphs.

> Maxime C, I had the same question as you – Why choose this sorting method for encoding the photon positions? My conclusion is that it doesn’t work however. Each additional step run with a large string produces an additional secondary binomial distribution. To get a smooth curve, we’d need to run billions of steps on a large string, but then we we’d also see billions of peaks, which no longer compares well with the expected diffraction pattern.