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https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html

“Now, what happens if you try to come up with a theory that's like probability theory, but based on the 2-norm instead of the 1-norm? I'm going to try to convince you that quantum mechanics is what inevitably results.

Let's consider a single bit. In probability theory, we can describe a bit as having a probability p of being 0, and a probability 1-p of being 1. But if we switch from the 1-norm to the 2-norm, now we no longer want two numbers that sum to 1, we want two numbers whose squares sum to 1.”