couldnt you tell what will happen in the future if you knew all the physics of the

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Fiona

Member
Not at the quantum level. Some processes such as radioactive decay occur completely and utterly at random with no cause whatsoever. That makes them impossible to predict. Since they then go on to influence larger scale events, which then influence other events, and so on, it becomes impossible to predict what will happen.
 
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TheSkeptic

New member
technically speaking everything in the universe can be defined as a particle, both physically and meta physically. It is believed that if you knew the position and velocity of every single particle in the universe you could know the future position of that particle and therefore you would know the future. However, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle it is physically impossible to know BOTH the position and velocity of any particle, much less all the particles in the universe. <--- (i have kind of simplified this a lot because this is a very complex and abstract topic)

So basically yes it is possible to know the future if you knew all the "physics" in the universe, but it is impossible to know all the "physics" in the universe.
 
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Tim

Member
Aside from quantum uncertainty, Yes!.

Uncertainty is not the same as total randomness like people have suggested. Are universe is thankfully governed by laws. We can predict things with a great deal of accuracy. For instance, I can throw a ball and predict with some certainty where it will land, and I know that there will be a full moon on March 2, 2075.

The problem is the more detailed and the further out you want to predict the more you have to know. That would require an infinitely more sophisticated computer. If you really wanted to know everything there is to know, you would need a computer that is at least as large the the entire universe making it impossible.

As far as quantum uncertainty, it does not make as big of a difference as some people would think. The Heisenberg uncertainty principal DOES NOT state that it is impossible to know both the speed and position of a particle. It only says that the more accurately you try to measure one, the less accurate your measure of the other becomes. We can still measure the speed and position of a particle with a great deal of accuracy. Quantum theory relies on probability. We can make positions about particles in atom with incredibly small degrees of uncertainty.


Another way to think about quantum uncertainty is this:
Lets saying you are bouncing a ball off of a wall and catching it. Uncertainty says that there is a small chance that the electrons could be arranged in such a way that the electrons in the ball would not interact with the electrons from the wall, and the ball could pass right though it. However, when does this ever happen? In reality never. Almost everything we experience in our day to day lives is based on Newtonian physics and not on quantum mechanics.





The fact is that advanced computers are able to predict everything from the stock markets to weather using the system you are talking about. The more information the computer has, the more accurate and far reaching predictions about the future are.
 
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