Yatzy, or Yahtzee, you probably know the dice game. Everybody has played it, except God. That's what Albert Einstein said:
According to quantum mechanics, you can never know exactly where a particle is. You can only know the probability of observing it here or there. Once you measure, you will know, but then you don't know the speed of it.
The opposite is also true. If you park your bike in the yard, and you know it's standing still, you don't know where it is. That's what quantum mechanics says, Fortunately this effect is too small to be an issue for bikes or anything else in the world we experience in our daily lives.
But this is how it works on the scale of atoms and smaller. You can't know both the position and speed of a particle at the same time. This is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Even God has to obey it.
God may be almighty, but Heisenberg is mightier >:)
Appendix:
Classical physics is deterministic, in the sense that the effect can be calculated if the cause is known.
In quantum mechanics this principle is apparently lost. But this is only apparently.The probability distributions (wave functions) of quantum mechanics are deterministic. It's only our observations that have an element of randomness. The probability distributions contain everything you may want to know about a particle, and if you know the probability distribution at present, you can calculate it at all times in the future (and the past).
The laws of physics work in the same way every time we apply them, fortunately. Otherwise it would be difficult to build skyscrapers and bridges, and it would be very risky to fly on an air plane. Also, it seems like the laws of physics have worked the same way in the past, as far as we can observe from geological processes an remote galaxies, millions of lightyears away (that's how we can see the past).
This means that either there is no God, or He has chosen to never use His almightyness to change the laws of physics. Or maybe He just couldn't defeat Heisenberg?
"God doesn't play dice"The reason for Einstein's famous statement was that he didn't like the probability aspect of quantum mechanics, this somewhat fuzzy theory of physics which was developed in the early 1900s.
According to quantum mechanics, you can never know exactly where a particle is. You can only know the probability of observing it here or there. Once you measure, you will know, but then you don't know the speed of it.
The opposite is also true. If you park your bike in the yard, and you know it's standing still, you don't know where it is. That's what quantum mechanics says, Fortunately this effect is too small to be an issue for bikes or anything else in the world we experience in our daily lives.
But this is how it works on the scale of atoms and smaller. You can't know both the position and speed of a particle at the same time. This is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Even God has to obey it.
God may be almighty, but Heisenberg is mightier >:)
Appendix:
Classical physics is deterministic, in the sense that the effect can be calculated if the cause is known.
In quantum mechanics this principle is apparently lost. But this is only apparently.The probability distributions (wave functions) of quantum mechanics are deterministic. It's only our observations that have an element of randomness. The probability distributions contain everything you may want to know about a particle, and if you know the probability distribution at present, you can calculate it at all times in the future (and the past).
The laws of physics work in the same way every time we apply them, fortunately. Otherwise it would be difficult to build skyscrapers and bridges, and it would be very risky to fly on an air plane. Also, it seems like the laws of physics have worked the same way in the past, as far as we can observe from geological processes an remote galaxies, millions of lightyears away (that's how we can see the past).
This means that either there is no God, or He has chosen to never use His almightyness to change the laws of physics. Or maybe He just couldn't defeat Heisenberg?
Or maybe he created it all?
ReplyDeleteIn that case, He created something that He doesn't have full control of anymore >:)
DeleteWith all respect to science, you cannot disprove the existence of God scientifically (yet); just like you cannot prove His/Her existence either. That's why it's all about believing it or not. However, we have the same problems in science - sometimes we cannot prove it all. We assume and believe, at least in the geo-sciences. I believe that God is a great joker, scientist, artist and much much more :-)
ReplyDeleteReligion is about belief. Science is about evidence. It's not a task for science to prove or disprove the existence of God. Therefore, science and religion are not in conflict
DeleteNot sure I'm following how the last paragraphs lead to the either/or on God's existence, but interesting way to get from Y to Yahtzee to quantum physics.
ReplyDeleteI could have written a post about Yang-Mills theory, but I thought Yatzy would be better as a headline.
DeleteIn the last paragraph I just say that the laws of physics appear to have been the same for the entire lifetime of our universe (13.8 billion years). Hence, either there is no God, or God (if He exists) has not bothered to change the laws of physics throughout this time.
If God had changed the laws of physics frequently, say once a year, but at random dates, it would have made our lives very complicated.
I've never actually played Yahtzee before. As for quantum mechanics, that stuff is way over my head.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that quantum mechanics is a lot more fun than Yatzy >:)
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