Stephen Hawking: Does God Play Dice? »
Posted By RickyDawkins 10 months, 2 weeks ago in NewsAlbert Einstein was very unhappy about the apparent randomness in nature. In quantum mechanics, particles don't have well defined positions and speeds. The more accurately you try to measure the position of a particle of light, the less accurately you can know the speed, and vice versa. With black holes, however, the situation is rather different.
Read Full Story at hawking.org.uk »
Submitted By:
RickyDawkins
Pascal's Wager (God is a safe bet)
"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing--but if you ...
Related Articles:
Why not submit a story?
Join the Discussion 
+ Add Comment
Comments So Far: 144
-
0%
RickyDawkins10 months, 2 weeks ago
"It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist. A scientific law, is not a scientific law, if it only holds when some supernatural being, decides to let things run, and not intervene."
Gradually however, people must have noticed certain regularities in the behavior of nature. A new theory, called quantum mechanics, was put forward by Heisenberg, the Austrian, Erwin Schroedinger, and the British physicist, Paul Dirac. Although quantum mechanics has been around for nearly 70 years, it is still not generally understood or appreciated, even by those that use it to do calculations. Yet it should concern us all, because it is a completely different picture of the physical universe, and of reality itself. In quantum mechanics, particles don't have well defined positions and speeds. Instead, they are represented by what is called a wave function."
-Stephen Hawking
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html
Reply-
0%
Goppy10 months, 2 weeks ago
I dont know bout all that. They dint teach us anything bout this type of thing at my college - The College of Creationism.
Alls I know is that Christians are of two minds on the issue.
1. God, bein of infinite and unfathomable complexity, created the universe as a reflection of that infinite complexity. One of Gods creations was mankind - who was given a couple additional qualities that set him apart from animals and bacteria - a Conscience and Free Will and an ability to Love. These - so that mankind can grow to appreciate the love that is God.
2. God is liek a great Magician - who snapped his fingers over the course of 6 days - and liek a great David Copperfield created all that we see around us. God is by turns, kind, resentful, arbitrary, punishin, an enforcer, a warrior, a loving grandfatherly type, and a marriage broker. OH! And a Far Right Republican as defined by Ann Coulter. --- Or seen another way - liek an amalgam of Zeus, Athena, Nike, Poseidon, and Ares.
Reply-
0%
Blackacereturn10 months, 2 weeks ago
Awww the arrogance of man. It never ceases to amuse me. to think that it's god who is off and not them. This is why I am very careful who I label a genius because as soon as you do, they do something to remind you that they are not.
All they are is a person that is driven by a single subject, like a guy who is a very good truck driver, only we place no value on this and he is labeled, well, truck driver.
Reply
-
-
0%
RickyDawkins10 months, 2 weeks ago
"The classical view (Laplace) was that the future motion of particles was completely determined, if one knew their positions and speeds at one time.
However the situation changed, when I discovered that black holes aren't completely black. Quantum mechanics causes them to send particles and radiation at a steady rate. This result came as a total surprise, but it should have been obvious. What we think of as empty space is not really empty, but is filled with pairs of particles and anti particles. These appear together at some point of space and time, move apart, and then come together and annihilate each other. These particles and anti particles occur because a field, such as the fields that and gravity, can't be exactly zero.
In extreme conditions, like in the early universe, or in high energy collisions, there could be significant loss of information. This would lead to unpredictability in the evolution of the universe."
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice2.html
Reply -
0%
BronxBomber10 months, 2 weeks ago
Well something is flawed if we are held to believe that this world is only 5,000 years old when science proves otherwise.
Free will---->God is good.
:o)
Reply -
0%
ConquerorWyrm10 months, 2 weeks ago
Freewill, which is 'choice' which is 'heresy'...
if God gave us freewill, then God gave us choice (heresy)
thus the truly faithful are the 'heretics', those who choose through their freewill
as opposed to those who refer to themselves as religious, which stems from a word meaning 'to bind'. those in bondage are those in slavery
Funnymentalist Evangelicultists and others who demand strict adherence to their religion (slavery) disdain (and often burn at the stake) those whom they refer to as 'heretics' (those who choose, exercise their God given gift of 'freewill')
Makes you wonder...why would these religions demand you disregard (with threats of death most often) the greatest of God's gifts?
Reply-
0%
DarkWizard10 months, 2 weeks ago
ConquerorWyrm,
"Funnymentalist Evangelicultists and others who demand strict adherence to their religion (slavery) disdain (and often burn at the stake) those whom they refer to as 'heretics' (those who choose, exercise their God given gift of 'freewill')"
Yes, the ignorant masses will burn the intelligent few for being different (heretics) and using their intelligence to think differently than those who would give up their freewill.
Reply -
-
-
0%
Natureboy10 months, 2 weeks ago
Nah, he was shooting craps with satan for the fate of the world. He should know better.
Reply -
0%
jimdoze10 months, 2 weeks ago
"Such objects were given the name Black Holes, by the American physicist John Wheeler, who was one of the first to recognise their importance, and the problems they pose. The name caught on quickly. To Americans, it suggested something dark and mysterious, while to the British, there was the added resonance of the Black Hole of Calcutta. But the French, being French, saw a more risqué meaning. For years, they resisted the name, trou noir, claiming it was obscene. But that was a bit like trying to stand against le weekend, and other franglais. In the end, they had to give in. Who can resist a name that is such a winner?"
"John Wheeler called this, 'A Black Hole Has No Hair.' To the French, this just confirmed their suspicions."
Rolling on the floor funny! Hawking is amazing!
Reply -
-
0%
Shadowolf10 months, 2 weeks ago
...my allergy to math is so bad,everytime a physicist opens their mouth, I get a headache...
Reply -
0%
Searchbeam10 months, 2 weeks ago
Ricky,
This is probably your best post ever!
I never knew Hawing could be so funny, humorous and with such an incisive mind to be able to explain Quantum Mechanics in such simple and easy to understand terms! My hats off to him!( I slept through the lectures on Quantum Mechanics during my undergraduate Physics days!). His explanation of Black Holes is probably the best I have ever come across!
His explanation of the French revulsion to the word "Black Hole" and "black Hole without Hair" is absolutely hilarious!
I knew Physics was fun; it just so many years to come out in the open!
Great post! Really!
Peace and Blessings!
Reply-
0%
vor10 months, 2 weeks ago
The problem is that no matter how clear Hawking makes his assumptions some 60% of Americans (those that believe the Bible is God's literal word) will never listen.
I have often said that if scientists ever found the origin of the universe they would have a very hard time explaining this to Christians if they could get them to listen at all, no matter the evidence.
Reply
-
-
-
AtheismIsRealityComment removed: User banned.4 Replies
-
-
0%
Mutainia10 months, 2 weeks ago
Wasn't something recently discovered to be going FASTER than the speed of light? If so, that could straighten out Einstein's funny hair, if he were still alive.
Reply-
0%
Thinker2210 months, 2 weeks ago
> Wasn't something recently discovered to be going FASTER than the speed of light?
A simple example of "something" going faster than the speed of light would be a light spot from a spinning source of light (a powerful laser, for example). In theory, there is no limit to the speed this light spot will be moving if the screen this spot of light is projected upon is sufficiently far away from the (sufficiently fast) spinning source of light.
There is no contradiction in this (or other similar) examples of "something" going FASTER that the speed of light with Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The velocity of light in vacuum is the upper limit to the speed INFORMATION can be delivered.
Reply-
0%
Mutainia10 months, 2 weeks ago
What scientists have to wrestle with on Einstein's theory is that with it comes the belief that nothing can escape from a black hole. Yet, supposedly, the entire universe escaped from a particle smaller than a proton... which seems would have been the largest black hole ever. Seems like a miracle that the universe could escape from something like that.
Reply -
0%
Grrr10 months, 1 week ago
Sorry, thinker, but the example you give is NOT a something going faster than the speed of light. It is an illusion of such. There is nothing in your projected spot of light that actually 'travels' at all. Any two points of projection that you are measuring speed between are two DIFFERENT things. Two different spots of projected light made up of entirely different reflected photons.
Reply -
0%
Grrr10 months, 1 week ago
And yes, there is a contradiction in something actually moving faster than the speed of light in the Universe described by Einstein.
An objects combined motion through time and space cannot exceed the speed of light.
Photons gots no clocks! Speed of light through space means zero movement through time.
Reply
-
-
-
0%
truthiness10 months, 2 weeks ago
great article Ricky.
I find some comfort in the uncertainty principle. the idea of determinism leaves me cold. if nothing is set in stone, then my life is belongs to me.
there is also the simple logic that existence is chaos. the fact that there are patterns within the chaos doesn't create fate.
Reply -
0%
canadianrancher5710 months, 2 weeks ago
This was a great read, it'll take a bit of digesting but for some unknown reason some of it made sense. Until we are able to measure energy time and space together many of the secrets of the universe will remain unknown. Some day someone will propose a theory that can tie the parts of energy released from black holes. I find it hard to believe that some of the information is completly lost unless one looks at the energy that is used for thought, we could measure the energy needed for thought but how does one measure the energy of the thought itself.
Reply-
0%
Searchbeam10 months, 2 weeks ago
cr,
That would need some heavy lifting, I guess!
The completion of work on Unified Field Theory will be a good starting point to establish some relationships that we can feel exist, but cannot prove for lack of a definitive equation.
For those curious about it, it is an attempt to co-relate all types of fields in the universe, such as, gravity, electricity, magnetism, as well as different forms of energy. The proposed endpoint is an equation that defines it all.
Reply
-
-
0%
truthiness10 months, 2 weeks ago
if a car of mass x and velocity y strikes another vehicle of mass a and velocity b on a tarmac, we can use that information to determine where the vehicles will end up
so if we know UV light (for example) travels in packets of size x and energy y when the packet comes into contact with a particle we are trying to view, why cant we determine the affect it will have on the particle?
Reply -
0%
Searchbeam10 months, 2 weeks ago
I suppose it can be done, if several variables are known, such as the mass of the particle, its dynamics, it's energy state, as well as it's electrical and magnetic charge, it's atomic structure, etc.
However, the size of the particle will determine the accuracy with which you can determine its location. That is when Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, and other quantum mechanics issues might pop up.
Reply -
0%
canadianrancher5710 months, 2 weeks ago
The final pieces of this puzzle will be found eventually the biggest problem will be thier exact placement in the puzzle, I try not to think of the caculations that will be involved to bring it all together. With each new piece that found it also expands the lines of thought that can be appliedto the problem. I hope this statement is relevant to the story but I think that when the puzzle is complete man will be in the image of God, which to me means we have the answer to our beginning.
Reply -
0%
DarkWizard10 months, 2 weeks ago
How can we be certain that a Black Hole is really a hole at all? Maybe, it's a Black Cone.
Reply-
0%
jimdoze10 months, 2 weeks ago
Think of it as a "bubble", of indeterminable dimensions, into elsewhere... much as our universe is a "bubble" of dimensions indeterminable by observers from whence it came.
Reply-
0%
DarkWizard10 months, 2 weeks ago
jimdoze,
Why should I think of it as a "bubble?" Are you trying to hypnotize me?
A Black Hole would imply that everything that is sucked into it could possibly go on to infinity. Whereas, a cone would have a defined end point. If we believe that the universe is not infinite how can the hole be infinite? Therefore, it must have an end point. Or, we must believe that the hole goes into another dimension, another universe, or into nothingness. How can we fathom or reconcile this with the physical laws we now have?
So, we are back to the Uncertainty Principle as applied to Philosophical Science. Probabilities are only theories until proven or disproven. But, until then we have no certainty of what a Black Hole really is. Black Holes can't even be observed. Just the lack of light is observed.
Reply
-
-
