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From: hull@hao.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Is the universe predictable?
Message-ID: <1307@hao.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Dec-84 17:47:14 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.1307
Posted: Wed Dec 19 17:47:14 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 01:47:35 EST
References: <382@ukma.UUCP> <6641@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 20

> > I think the question here is: Are there any truly random forces?
> 
> The consensus of the physics community appears to be that quantum
> laws are inherently random, and that this is NOT just a lack of
> detailed understanding of a really deterministic situation.
> 
> This bothers me..

Yes.  Me too.  I had been told that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
was a *measurement effect* caused by the fact that we must necessarily
investigate the state of things using the objects at hand (i.e. leptons,
baryons, photons, gravitons, intermediate vector bosons (:-), etc.) and
must do so within our own space-time reference.  Yet I have seen numerous
references on the net to Uncertainty being a property of the objects being
investigated, rather than a combination of the properties of the objects
and the energy of the test entity (probe thing).  These references are
especially centered on "virtual particles" (which I had assumed were
[perhaps imaginary?] solutions to the exchange equations).  What gives?
								Howard Hull
        {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | harpo!seismo } !hao!hull