Does God play dice???

[Guest guest]

Sri:

Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:

 

Dears,

Salutations to all. This post highlights some "controversial

issues" in Modern Physics leading to philosophical implications.

Instead of saying science,I would prefer to use the word Physics

because biologists do research at molecular level(biological life

which is made of complex molecules proteins and DNA are explained by

Chemistry which in turn explained by physics),chemists at atomic

level and physicists at particle level on the one hand and

astronomical level on the other. Universe is made up of

elements,elements made up of molecules,molecules are of atoms,atoms

are of particles(electron,proton,neutron). Till 1960's these three

were the fundamental particles but with the Nobel Prize winner Gell-

Mann(1969),protons and neutrons were no longer elementary particles

but are further made up of smaller particles called quarks. If one

wants to couple quantum physics and relativity(marriage bwteen the

two),the picture is not rosy. Relativistic quantum physics explains

all obervables nice at microscopic level but does a poor job at

macrolevel(astro). But if you assume that quarks are made

of "strings"(they are not particles just similar to a guitar

string),then atleast it's able to account for gravity but it has its

own drawbacks(there are many versions of Super String Theory,recent

one is M-Theory,mother of all super strings).

 

Physicists are also trying to unravel the mystery of the universe.

The fundamental forces of nature are gravity,electromagnetic,weak

(radiactive decay)and the strong(nuclear force). In the very very

early stages of the universe at Planck's time scale(10 power -40

sec,just imagine!)and less than that,all the four forces were in an

undifferentiated form(note the similarity 4 forces-4 vyUhas)and the

symmetry was unbroken and the temperature was of the order of 10

power 33 Kelvin(core temperature of the sun is 6000 degree Kelvin).

Let's not go into those nos! As the exapansion started,the temperature

was reducing and only nuclear force was dominating and as time

evolves slowly weak force enters the scene,then electromagentic and

then finall gravity. The first three forces have already been united

successfully and it's gravity which poses lot of problems. That's

called Quantum Electro Dynamics(QED). The quarks come in 6 colors

(compare it to the six guNas)namely top,bottom,up,down,strange and

beauty. Then it became Quantum Chromodynamics(QCD).

 

The famous statement "God does not play dice" was uttered by the all

time greatest theoretical physicist Einstein in his objection to the

then prevalent quantum mechanics view(Copenhagen Interpretation of

Quantum Mechanics). The conference was held in Copenhagen(hence the

name)and the advocates of this view were Niels Bohr,Heisenberg,Pauli

etc and the staunch opponents were Einstein(top list),Schroedinger,

Dirac. This view leads to all kinds of contradictions and reflects

some of advaitic principles(will come back to it in the next post).

What does it contradict? BTW it was the year 1935 and the saddest

thing is the advocates especially Bohr brainwashed generation of

physicists saying that all problems in physics have been resolved and

there can't be a better a explanation than those views! It simply

means(whether he realized or not)that Physics has reached the end of

the road(dead end)and the whole chapter was closed(as far quantum

mechanics interpretaion was concerned)for three and a half decades.

Just imagine if Sri Ramanuja had written a commentary on TiruvAymozhi

and made a statement that his is the final word and any other version

(even if better)will be outrightly rejected. Situation is similar.

Only since 80's the road to the original interpretation of quantum

physics(Copenhagen)was once again open. There are lots of researches

going on to come up with a better interpretation of quantum

mechanics.

 

The copenhagen view contradicts causality,determinism

/certainty. The game of dice is related to the theory of probability.

Einstein till his last breath did not accept it and always said it's

incomplete and will crumble down in a century or so just like

Newtonian mechanics did. He came with a famous thought experiment to

counter arugue the Copenhagen standpoint.I wish Einstein's vision

come true maybe after a century. According to Copenhagen

interpretation,matter does not exist independently of the observer.

The universe does not exist if there is no observer. In short when a

tree falls in forest there is no noise if there is no observer.

Einstein believed in a thoery which is observer independent. A theory

can be verified by experience but it is not wise to set up a theory

based on experiences(will end up with many theories). Einstein's

belief is that this universe exists(and real) independent of the

observer. Einstein was a firm believer in God. Relativity Theory of

Einstein,which is a one man contribution(unlike the quantum

theory),has yielded insight into universes,orbits of planets,black

holes,stars and galaxies. Black hole is a solution of his field

equation and he regretted that he left his equation unsolved and was

solved by Schwartzschild. The term radius, sitting in the denominator

of the field eqn,called schwartzschild radius,when becomes zero

(physically it doesn't make sense,assume point radius),leads to a

singularity called balck hole but this was given by Chandrasekhar in

1936 but even Einstein couldn't imagine(a point with infinite density)

the outcome and the astronomer who verified Einstein's results

experimentally,was a stumbling block for Chandra. So Chandra shifted

his field itself(after his phd thesis)because of Einstein and

Eddington. It took Physics community 5 decades to recognize Chandra's

work and was awarded Nobel Prize in 1983(where 1936 is and 1983 is?).

It's not an easy joke to convince people!

Physicists themselves call quantum mechanics as "quantum absurdity".

The american physicist Feymann says "I can safely say that nobody

understands quantum mechanics;but how can that be?".

 

What are the philosophical implications and how Einstein stands apart

from the rest when it comes to physical insight? We will see in the

next post. These are all prep for the necessity of Divya Desam

worship!!! Sorry to have pained you all with a lengthy post.

 

AzhvAr EmperumAnAr Jeeyar TiruvadigaLE saraNam

nappinnai