Whatever you're about to say didn't make me less confused. - by Tonamel
Pyrian on 17/11/2010 at 18:38
Quote Posted by Azaran
In some university, I don't recall which...
There's an awful lot of B.S. floating around that begins that way. :p
Quote Posted by SD
Shouldn't everything that hasn't happened yet be theoretically predictable?
Strictly speaking, no. There are limits to what can be known, and limits to what could be predicted with that information even if you had it. Still, with a few notable exceptions, those limits are typically well below the humanly perceptible threshold; we're much more likely, in any given case, to be stymied by chaos than by true indeterminacy. Computer random number generation, for instance, is based on chaotic algorithms.
Quote Posted by SD
If I have a pool table and I strike a cue ball along a fixed path at a fixed velocity into another ball, then so long as I have perfect knowledge about what environmental conditions are acting upon the balls, I can work out exactly where that second ball is going to end up.
It's like, on a normal sort of scale, sure, but if you really
mean "perfect" and "exactly" then no.
Quote Posted by SD
That's all that the universe, atoms and molecules and particles, is; billiard balls bouncing into each other.
Once you get down to the scale of molecules, quantum effects simply cannot be ignored, and make the whole situation categorically distinct from the macroscopic behavior of billiard balls.
Chimpy Chompy on 17/11/2010 at 19:55
For example you (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenberg_uncertainty) can't precisely know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time.
And yeah, the quantum world is a lot weirder than little billiard balls bouncing off each other.
reizak on 17/11/2010 at 21:15
And then there's the n-body problem that states that the motion of three or more interacting bodies can't be determined even in the macroscopic world (only approximated by numerical methods).
Sulphur on 17/11/2010 at 21:23
Quote Posted by SD
Shouldn't everything that hasn't happened yet be theoretically predictable?
Sure, if you know the position and state of every single thing in the universe at any given point in time (or at least from the Big Bang onwards, provided there was a Big Bang) and there are no exterior forces acting on the universe. (That is, the universe is a complete, closed, and isolated system.)
Then you have the Grand Unified Theory and man discovers how to ascend the celestial ranks into godhood. Makes for great science fiction in this particular epoch.
Sulphur on 17/11/2010 at 21:41
bet you guys didn't see THAT post coming, ha!
rachel on 17/11/2010 at 22:24
Quote Posted by SD
Shouldn't everything that hasn't happened yet be theoretically predictable? If I have a pool table and I strike a cue ball along a fixed path at a fixed velocity into another ball, then so long as I have perfect knowledge about what environmental conditions are acting upon the balls, I can work out exactly where that second ball is going to end up. That's all that the universe, atoms and molecules and particles, is; billiard balls bouncing into each other.
Friction and other factors make it impossible to predict where the ball will end up. Now, at that scale, their effect is negligible and you will be able to do it, but technically chaos is at work and the ball will never rest in the exact same spot.
nicked on 18/11/2010 at 08:57
Hypothetically, there could be some univeral-oneness to human consciousness that means that somewhere very deep in our brains we are aware of the effects of the particles moving around us, and therefore have some sort of untapped spidey-sense.
Briareos H on 18/11/2010 at 10:08
We
do mathematically describe it and it's called chaos.
Quote Posted by nicked
Hypothetically, there could be some univeral-oneness to human consciousness that means that somewhere very deep in our brains we are aware of the effects of the particles moving around us, and therefore have some sort of untapped spidey-sense.
Was that a joke? Because none of the words in this sentence makes sense.
Azaran on 18/11/2010 at 10:46
Quote Posted by Pyrian
There's an awful lot of B.S. floating around that begins that way. :p
It was a few years ago, but I'm almost positive it was the Princeton University Anomalies research facility where they were doing those tests. I saw it on a tv documentary about parapsychology. Of course I can't vouch for the integrity of those tests, but if they are genuine it opens up interesting possibilities.
