--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > [...] > > (My response to Einstein: God *does* play dice with > > the universe, but He can calculate the odds to > > infinity.) > > But that doesn't matter with Quantum Mechanics, because past a > certainpoint you CANNOT calculatethe odds. It is purely random, unlike > a roll of physical dice.
Right, key words in QM: unpredictable, yet deterministic. Einstein and Bohr agreed on the deterministic part but disagreed on the unpredictable part. (Bohr, like contemporaries in the same "tradition" hold that QM is or may be ...(since this is beyond ordinary proof) intrinsically random). Another reason that even classical particles are inherantly unpredictable is due chaos, and the difficulty of calculating with infinite precision the location and momentum of particles, say billiard balls. A more refined grained type of unpredictability arises due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. This topic impinges on the nature of "Deity" (a personal Diety); since, making an analogy to metaphysical reality, one can speculate on the nature of Deity: or at least an extremely intelligent Personality. Can such a Deity predict, with absolute certainty, the future of every atom? We can call such a Futurologist a "Laplacean Deity", going back to a famous conversation between the mathematician Laplace and Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon speculated on the nature of a Deity Who could predict the future with infinite precicison. Such a Diety became known as a "Laplacean Diety" but ironically Laplace didn't even believe in such an entity. When Napoleon asked him what he thought of God, Laplace said "I have no need of that idea". The average physicist today would say that there is no such entity, nor can there be. Basically, predicting the future with 100% precision is out of the question. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
