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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!southard
From: southard@unc.UUCP (Scott Southard)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: a piece of folk-lore
Message-ID: <93@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Sep-85 03:33:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.93
Posted: Sat Sep 28 03:33:28 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 06:12:24 EDT
References: <1799@psuvax1.UUCP> <9600018@uiucdcsp> <1342@kestrel.ARPA> <10480@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: southard@unc.UUCP (Scott Southard)
Organization: CS Dept, U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 25
Summary: 

In article <10480@ucbvax.ARPA> tedrick@ucbernie.UUCP (Tom Tedrick) writes:
>>Notice that this story makes Einstein look stodgy, because, if one
>>accepts quantum mechanics, "God" DOES play dice with the universe.
>>So why is this saying famous? Because it sounds good to people
>>ignorant of quantum mechanics?
>
>Another way of looking at this may be that Einstein had philosophical
>objections to assuming that randomness is an inherent property of
>events. Perhaps Quantum physics can be looked at as a
>model rather than a true description. I personally have never
>been able to accept the premise that randomness truly underlies
>anything, but it is easy to accept as long as it is seen as part
>of a model rather than truth.

Quantum physics seems to deal more with probabilities than randomness,
since events can happen spontaneously without cause, but the event that
occurs occurs with a certain probability.  This is not true randomness,
since it is probability that guides what events occur.  Nevertheless, it
is disturbing that events can occur without prior cause.  It seems that
God does play dice with the universe, but the numbers that come up on the
dice are inevitably decided by probability.  It seems I'm getting off
the subject of math....

   Scott Southard
   <southard@unc>


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