2007-11-30 05:33:21 · 8 answers · asked by serdar k 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Engineering
Yes, a lot of future events can be calculated like position of earth after a given time or when a meteor will pass around earth. Just simple examples but there are a lot more.
Now if you are talking about predicting what you'll be doing in 10 years considering all evidences we have now it's plain impossible.
2007-11-30 05:46:46 · answer #1 · answered by Dude 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hi,
If you can write a math function that accurately describes the past behavior related to what future behavior you want to predict, then you can extrapolate that function into the future and get a "best guess" as to what the situation will be at aparticular time in the future. Obviously, the future is never totally certain, so these predictions only have a certain probability of being correct.
Obviously, there are many things such as human behavior, the stock market and other such things that cannot be reduced to RELIABLE mathematical functions, so the future in that sense is not predictable.
FE
2007-11-30 07:39:44 · answer #2 · answered by formeng 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would say not at this time. When I was in school back in the 1940's, It was said that space travel was impossible. There was no such word as astronaut. A space ship which carried a human being was unthinkable. Of course television was in the early stages and only available to a few. With very little to watch .To drive across town with only one flat tire was a real luxury ride. Many things that were said to be impossible have been made to happen. So keep on thinking and don't let antone say that is impossible.
2007-11-30 06:23:09 · answer #3 · answered by unpop5 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Impossible for two reasons. First, it's chaotic. If you had a frictionless ball on a frictionless pool table, the gravitational force of an atom at the other end of the universe would change its path after twenty or thirty rebounds. Arbitrarily small effects have arbitrarily large consequences. No matter how many thousands of digits of precision you used, sooner or later it wouldn't be precise enough to get the answer.
Second, it's non-deterministic because of quantum randomness. Some phenomena have only statistical answers - exactness is physically impossible. If you have two identical uranium atoms side by side, there's no way to predict which one will decay first, or when.
2007-11-30 08:01:32 · answer #4 · answered by Tom V 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Where a space probe will land on Mars, yes.
What the weather will be a week from now, no.
The same equations you use to predict these things will also tell you how far into the future the prediction can make sense.
So in effect you can not know everything in advance but you can always know what you can not know in advance.
2007-11-30 05:59:07 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, no. Since after Newton invented calculus,
it took the wanks in science another two hundred years
until the discovery of set theory,
to realize that the question doesn't make any
sense at all, unless you ask the other question:
The future of what?
2007-11-30 08:35:57 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. The future is not possible. Sorry.
2007-11-30 05:42:18 · answer #7 · answered by za 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
God only knows...
2007-11-30 05:50:22 · answer #8 · answered by Dracula 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋