English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

Do you agree with Einstein's thoery of everything is predictable, or with the theory of probability, saying no particle could be measured as being in one exact location in space?

2006-11-05 13:38:58 · 8 answers · asked by Matt T 2 in Science & Mathematics Physics

8 answers

Einstein talked about hidden variables. Perhaps he meant they were beyond our universe (in another dimention, beyond our grasp). I think Einstein was right, but that's just me. Its easy for anyone to say: "I agree with a genius..."

But think about this: if we could see an immaginary universe in a 2d space 1d time the people in that universe would not know what up and down is, even if these people would live (still in 2d space, 1 d time) on the surface of a cylender.
But from our 3d space 1d time, we could see that the "immaginary characters" living on the surface of the cylender are either on one side or the other(upper section or lower, from our point of view in 3d space, 1d time).

Young's experiment proved that one particle can move trough two holes at the same time.
We also know that when you find the position of a particle the system is disturbed.

Einstein was right when he said that: " G-d does'nt play dice!"

2006-11-05 13:56:07 · answer #1 · answered by Yahoo! 5 · 0 0

Well, Quantum Mechanics is basically probability, so I guess Einstein's view didn't take in the scientific community. I think the best proof of the probability view is the fact we don't know exactly where electrons are at any given moment inside an atom.

Enrique, you kinda have it wrong, Young's double slit experiment showed a property of electromagnetic waves, NOT a property of matter. The fact that it showed interference is not because particles "switched" places, but it is what happens when waves collide.
If you remember, Young was trying to prove that light was a wave and not matter, because at the time there was a big debate. He proved his point.
But we all know much later Einstein proved that light is also matter with the photoelectric experiment.

2006-11-05 16:23:21 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

To be quantum, or not to be quantum, that is the question. Right now there is a great struggle to explain both Einstein's theoty of gravity (general relativity) and the theory of the other three fundamental forces (quantum theory) into a cohesive whole. Probably right now, the effort seems to be in shoehorning relativity into quantum theory. In favor of this approach is Bell's Inequality, which basically says that either logic is wrong, or there is no way to avoid the randomness that quantum theory introduces to our conception of reality, or that non-locality, what Einstein called spooky action at a distance, is a feature of reality. I'm not sure that anyone's been able to say which of those three (or which ones of those three) are true, but the suspicion falls upon the latter two.

So, basically, at the moment science doesn't have an answer. Though I should point out that we *can* know exactly where something is located in space. It's just that, knowing that, we'd have no clue as to how fast that something was moving. (Off topic, but that's the heart of an old physics joke that goes like this: Heisenburg is driving down the highway one day when a police officer pulls him over. The office walks up to Heisenburg's car window, and asks, "Sir, do you know how fast you were moving?" Heisenburg shook his head, "No, but I know *exactly* where I am...")

As to my own opinion, it's a tough choice. For one thing, I do have my biases in that the universe certainly seems to not be deterministic, and causality seems to hold, at least from where I'm sitting. Of course, that's one that's plaqued many of the greatest physicists of the past century, including (notably) Einstein. To support quantum theory, you really have to abandon a lot of things you've taken for granted.

That being said (or should I say "In spite of having said that..."), I'd have to throw my hat in with relativity. For one thing, though from where I'm standing, they're both very elegant and beautiful theories, I'm told that the deeper you go into quantum theory (e.g. to explain all three of the fundamental forces at the same time), the more the beauty wears out if you will, similar to how a band can come up with a really wonderful song, and then spend the rest of their career singing basically that same song, pretty much ruining its appeal.

The other thing that puts me off with respect to quantum theory is the very ambiguous interpretation it has when compared to how general relativity is interpreted. That is, as a glance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_Quantum_Mechanics might show you, there are several valid ways of thinking about quantum theory (and many more not so valid ways). Even such a simple question as "What does it mean to make a measurement?" leads down deep and dark pathways with no visible end at this point in time. The interpretation of quantum theory is as uncertain as the speed of Prof. Heisenburg's car in the above joke. Relativity, on the other hand, has a fairly straight forward interpretation, and in particular the concept of measurement is fairly well defined. Of course, if the world truly is quantum, then this isn't the case. Finally, I suppose, the whole idea of spooky action at a distance has me spooked a bit too. But mainly, it's that the philosophical foundations of relativity seem to me to be much more solid than the ambiguous ones of quantum theory, and this is something I think is important. After all, Mother Nature doesn't sit behind the cosmic curtains plugging away at a calculator all day...

2006-11-05 15:56:45 · answer #3 · answered by DAG 3 · 0 0

Well, the probability part of it does stem from the discontinuous nature of energy. And it has shown to work very well for predicting bond angles and electron orbitals.

And quantum theory itself has be useful in the construction of atomic weapons, and lasers so the theory works pretty good. It does defy common sense so there has always been a quest to find some other explaination. So far nothing else has proven to be a better explaination.

2006-11-05 13:44:50 · answer #4 · answered by Roadkill 6 · 0 0

Although I'm not a great expert here, I'd say I'll take the latter interpretation, that no particle has an exact location. I think for me, Young's Double-Slit experiment convinced me. I mean, you send one particle at a time, see one flash at a time as expected, but as they start to add up, you see that there is still an interference pattern, as if the particles are interfering with themselves, or taking two paths at once. I don't see how that could happen unless the particle really does "spread out."

2006-11-05 13:44:58 · answer #5 · answered by Enrique C 3 · 0 1

Actually before Einstein died, he came to terms with the probabilistic theories. So I agree with both Einstein and the probabilistic theories.

2006-11-05 13:48:00 · answer #6 · answered by sparrowhawk 4 · 0 0

I aggree with quantum theory

2006-11-05 22:10:04 · answer #7 · answered by Juan D 3 · 0 0

yep

2006-11-05 13:43:28 · answer #8 · answered by DeborahDel 6 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers