Originally Posted By: Lucas
LarryLaffer: By the "dice" you are referring to the uncertainty relation aren't you? AFAIK it's just a law that we can't find out position and speed of particles as exact as we wish, so we have to work with probabilities. But I think there is no real random, we just can't find out these things exactly.
I think there is a real determinism.


That's exactly right. Quantum physics says that you can't know at once everything you'd want to know about a subatomic particle. Matter is made up of things called electrons and quarks and you are limited by nature in what you can know about them. The world has a built-in uncertainty that prevents you from knowing exactly how things are going to turn out. You can calculate only the probabilities of outcomes of events. If you measure an electron at one location, there's a certain probability that when you look for it at another location, you'll find it. So the future is as uncertain as we always though it was, and no technological advances are going to change that. That's the way the world is.

Einstein, who started quantum physics, never really believed that this view of the world was the final word, just like you're saying.. He thought that quantum physics was temporary and that one day we would discover the hidden world underneath; a world that isn't probabilistic. But sophisticated experiments done during the last 20 years have convinced physicists that, in this case, Einstein was wrong. The world that quantum physics shows us is the real world.

For more on the subject, look up some articles on the net on quantum physics, or you can check out this awesome and easy to follow book called "Quantum theory cannot hurt you" by Marcus Chown. I'm no physicist and I was able to follow that book very easy. Highly recommended.


Cheers,
Aris


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