Typicality in the foundations of statistical physics and born’s rule

Abstract

Typicality has always been in the minds of the founding fathers of probability theory when probabilistic reasoning is applied to the real world. However, the role of typicality is not always appreciated. An example is the article “Foundations of statistical mechanics and the status of Born’s rule in de Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave theory” by Antony Valentini (Valentini in Statistical Mechanics and Scientific Explanation. World Scientific,[1]), where he presents typicality and relaxation to equilibrium as distinct approaches to the proof of Born’s rule, while typicality is in fact an overriding necessity. Moreover the “typicality approach” to Born’s rule of “the Bohmian mechanics school” is claimed to be inherently circular. We wish to explain once more in very simple terms why the accusation is off target and why “relaxation to equilibrium” is neither necessary nor sufficient to justify Born’s rule.