Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Edge03zn on 01/02/2015 07:17:35
-
What does the latest Physics say?
-
What does the latest Physics say?
The latest is that the universe is not determined. This is what quantum mechanics tells us.
-
Could you provide me with a link? It would be much appreciated.
-
You can think of it this way. Flipping a coin, is that a deterministic process? After all, knowing all parameters, could you not define which side it land on? The question there is 'how to know'. In reality it becomes non linear, a chaotic system that depends on subtle differences in initial parameters, this assuming a same environment, of the throw. On a macroscopic plane this is the world we live in. On a microscopic plane you have statistics, giving you probabilities of a outcome. You have certain rules defining what you can know of, etc but there is no guarantee for a outcome, more than the statistics preceding it.
-
Hi everybody,
To me, for the universe not to be determined would mean that massive bodies have the intrinsic possibility to transgress the rules, just like us. It appears that we don't see that possibility for inert matter, because otherwise the laws of the universe would not be reliable, but is it really so? When we accelerate a body, the law of inertia says that it should resist to its acceleration, and it always does so, but how come does it accelerate at all then, isn't it transgressing its own resistance for a while?
-
To me it seems more as if chaos is nestled in determinism, in chaos, in determinism, ad infinitum, as I gather. You can find both, depending on how you look. You can't use the coin(s) before to define the next throw, but you can still find statistical patterns, as the one stating that with enough throws there should be a 50 50 distribution of heads and tails. When I wonder about that one I usually also start to wonder about chaos mathematics, and things like the Feigenbaum constants :) They're pretty weird.
==
http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/faculty/abstract.php?id=38
-
It depends upon what scale you are talking about.