Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (179322)	1/14/2012 3:01:44 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 542139

<<The importance of Einstein's theory of relativity was that it showed the classical universe was wrong and not deterministic, but rather a matter of probability; ironically something he never would accept. I think you're confusing relativity and quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is where probablistic behavior gets built into everything, and was the subject of Einstein's famous "God does not play dice" statements. Ironically, Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect was one of the foundations of quantum mechanics, and that was the work that Einstein got the Nobel prize for. He didn't like the way that turned out, though, and spent the rest of his life in a futile search for an alternative theory. No, I know the difference. Quantum physics was a outgrowth of Relativity and more specifically the photoelectric effect. And like you said Einstien did not like where it led i.e. a probabilistic universe. Those two big debates between Einstein and his pals and Niels Borh and his pals in 1927 and 30, were the primary debates of the last century. Specifically, one can never know for sure, both the position and velocity of an object. Bohr and Einstein argued about it for years. Einstein's refusal to accept a probabilistic universe drove bohr nuts. Einstein said "god does not play dice with the universe" ; to which Bohr responded: "Albert, quit telling god what to do; and god not only plays dice with the universe, but he does it in the dark Up until recently, relativity was thought to apply to the large world and quantum mechanics to the small, the two theories though never compatable, as I am sure you well know. And Einstein spent his life working on a unified field theory. Which went nowhere. Got to run, but today string theory is the leading candidate, but also a growing suspicion that the quantum phenomenon may well aplly to the macro world as much as the micro world.