The articulation in 1927 of the Uncertainty Principle by Werner Heisenberg threw a collassal monkey-wrench into Einstein’s dream of being able to describe the universe thoroughly in mathematical terms.
By showing that the coordinates of certain subatomic events could not be known with precision, Heisenberg introduced indeterminancy into the heart of the universe, dashing the dream of precisely predicting all future states of the universe in a set of mathematical equations.
Albert Einstein (who said: “I’m no Einstein”) refused to admit that the Uncertainty Principle tells us something about the nature of things-in-themselves. What it describes is simply the limitations of our ability to observe. We may not be able to specify the coordinates of some subatomic events, but that does not mean the coordinates themselves are indeterminate.
Einstein to his death retained the dream of devising a mathematical description of the universe that could, in principle, yield all past and future states of the universe.
Heisenberg to his death held to the Uncertainty Principle.
Are you Einsteinian? Heisenbergian? Agnostic?
Billy
Agnostic derives from the Greek agnostos, a = without, gnostos = known or knowledge.
Dave Uni57 is a WEAK atheist, according to Wikipedia, and I think everyone knew the first part.
If this interests you, you may want to have a read of “The Quantum Enigma”. It was written by two of my professors, and they are arguably among the best in their field… reviews say the book is quite entertaining, even to the layperson. I’ve yet to get a copy.
Current QM theory embraces Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and QM has yet to fail any experiemental verification. Einstien was just being a stick in the mud. He’s admittedly made huge mistakes before (see: cosmological constant) and this may be another of them.
I’m with Mr. H.
Perhaps you don’t realize how incredibly close we are to having a complete mathematical model of the inner workings of the physical world (see: standard model). There are but a few loose ends to tie up; the uncertainty principle does not stand in the way of any complete theory… it is an integral part thereof. It simply requires one make a statistical measurement of every phenomenon they wish to examine… this is good scientific practice nonetheless.
If you don’t think we should understand the universe, then you should go hang out with the creationists. They’re happy saying “God made it and that’s all that I need to know”. That doesn’t cut the mustard with me.
Just because we can’t figure out experimentally both the position and direction at the same time of certain particles doesn’t mean that it’s unpredictable. That has only to do with how we measure the particles. If we did know the coordinates of the particles then we could easily predict what would happen in the future. Just because our current technology doesn’t allow us to predict something certainly doesn’t mean that prediction isn’t possible.
I should elaborate. I don’t necessarily think that we should just stop trying to know stuff. Knowledge is good. It’s just that whole responsibility thing. Too much knowledge in the hands of the wrong people can be a bad thing. I don’t really advocate “giving up” in trying to understand the universe. I just think that we need responsibility before we get that knowledge. Does that make sense?
Personally, however, I am not too incredibly bothered by the fact that I cannot know the exact location AND velocity of an electron (or whatever) at the same time.
well, it’s actually position and momentum…but since we know the mass of the electron, you’re essentially correct.
I think you’re missing the point…the idea is not that we can’t know these things because our technology isn’t good enough, rather, it is simply NOT POSSIBLE to know, at the same time, the position and momentum of a particle precisely.
Let it be. Don’t tell your uni friends who you WON’T listen to --in that thread–that you value Wikipedia (people like THEM write Wikipedia) over your uni friends.
Right.
But you’re not bothered by the fact that you can’t find your socks and underpants, either.
Without looking further into the theories you mention I would be Einsteinian and Heisenbergian. I agree with both. With enough data, we can form an exact mathematical model of the universe. However, uncertainty in those measurements raise questions about the mathematical models, which leads to better measurements and improved models. We may form a perfect model, but at any one point we can not know whether that model is certain.
I don’t know, I’m still stuck on answering the ‘butterfly effect’ question posted years ago. But am beginning to think that it is related. If you can not measure with certainty, you can not predict with certainly. Therefor the stroke of the butterfly wings can not be shown to cause a distant effect. Dam, but I’m stuck again, on since you can not prove it, that doesn’t prove it’s not true. Dam, it comes back to religion.
When this happens, it’s aways best to go ride a unicycle. See how easily BillyTheMountain toys with my mind…
It seems some of you guys are missing the point that the uncertainty principle is part of the currently accepted model. Uncertainty is expected… it doesn’t mean the model needs improvement; it means that it’s a “law” of the physical world in which we live.
We can never know that a given statistical model is certain… there is no go/no-go test we can perform on such a model. Instead, we can perform thousands or millions of experiments and gather an overwhelming amount of data that supports a given model.
Take a look at the results of any experiment in the field of particle physics and you’ll see a “+/-” after each finding… we’re able to determine results mathematically and verify them experimentally with uncertainties in parts-per-million (or billion), but we’ll never be able to do away with uncertainty. It’s just the way God / Allah / Buddha / Krishna / the FSM rolls.