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Authors: Stephen Hawking
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would all die of skin cancer, but also everything in the universe would be at the same temperature, which clearly it isn't. However, Planck showed one could avoid this disaster, if one gave up the idea that the amount of radiation could have just any value, and said instead that radiation came only in packets or quanta of a certain size. It is a bit like saying that you can't buy sugar loose in the supermarket, but only in kilogram bags. The energy in the packets or quanta, is higher for ultra violet and x-rays, than for infra red or visible light. This means that unless a body is very hot, like the Sun, it will not have enough energy, to give off even a single quantum of ultra violet or x-rays. That is why we don't get sunburn from a cup of coffee.
Planck regarded the idea of quanta, as just a mathematical trick, and not as having any physical reality, whatever that might mean. However, physicists began to find other behaviour, that could be explained only in terms of quantities having discrete, or quantised values, rather than continuously variable ones. For example, it was found that elementary particles behaved rather like little tops, spinning about an axis. But the amount of spin couldn't have just any value. It had to be some multiple of a basic unit. Because this unit is very small, one does not notice that a normal top really slows down in a rapid sequence of discrete steps, rather than as a continuous process. But for tops as small as atoms, the discrete nature of spin is very important.
It was some time before people realised the implications of this quantum behaviour for determinism. It was not until 1926, that Werner Heisenberg, another German physicist, pointed out that you couldn't measure both the position, and the speed, of a particle exactly. To see where a particle is, one has to shine light on it. But by Planck's work, one can't use an arbitrarily small amount of light. One has to use at least one quantum. This will disturb the particle, and change its speed in a way that can't be predicted. To measure the position of the particle accurately, you will have to use light of short wave length, like ultra violet, x-rays, or gamma rays. But again, by Planck's work, quanta of these forms of light have higher energies than those of visible light. So they will disturb the speed of the particle more. It is a no win situation: the more accurately you try to measure the position of the particle, the less accurately you can know the speed, and vice versa. This is summed up in the Uncertainty Principle that Heisenberg formulated; the uncertainty in the position of a particle, times the uncertainty in its speed, is always greater than a quantity called Planck's constant, divided by the mass of the particle.
Laplace 's vision, of scientific determinism, involved knowing the positions and speeds of the particles in the universe, at one instant of time. So it was seriously undermined by Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle. How could one predict the future, when one could not measure accurately both the positions, and the speeds, of particles at the present time? No matter how powerful a computer you have, if you put lousy data in, you will get lousy predictions out.
Einstein was very unhappy about this apparent randomness in nature. His views were summed up in his famous phrase, 'God does not play dice'. He seemed to have felt that the uncertainty was only provisional: but that there was an underlying reality, in which particles would have well defined positions and speeds, and would evolve according to deterministic laws, in the spirit of Laplace. This reality might be known to God, but the quantum nature of light would prevent us seeing it, except through a glass darkly.
Einstein's view was what would now be called, a hidden variable theory. Hidden variable theories might seem to be the most obvious way to incorporate the Uncertainty Principle into physics. They form the basis of the mental picture of the universe,
Planck regarded the idea of quanta, as just a mathematical trick, and not as having any physical reality, whatever that might mean. However, physicists began to find other behaviour, that could be explained only in terms of quantities having discrete, or quantised values, rather than continuously variable ones. For example, it was found that elementary particles behaved rather like little tops, spinning about an axis. But the amount of spin couldn't have just any value. It had to be some multiple of a basic unit. Because this unit is very small, one does not notice that a normal top really slows down in a rapid sequence of discrete steps, rather than as a continuous process. But for tops as small as atoms, the discrete nature of spin is very important.
It was some time before people realised the implications of this quantum behaviour for determinism. It was not until 1926, that Werner Heisenberg, another German physicist, pointed out that you couldn't measure both the position, and the speed, of a particle exactly. To see where a particle is, one has to shine light on it. But by Planck's work, one can't use an arbitrarily small amount of light. One has to use at least one quantum. This will disturb the particle, and change its speed in a way that can't be predicted. To measure the position of the particle accurately, you will have to use light of short wave length, like ultra violet, x-rays, or gamma rays. But again, by Planck's work, quanta of these forms of light have higher energies than those of visible light. So they will disturb the speed of the particle more. It is a no win situation: the more accurately you try to measure the position of the particle, the less accurately you can know the speed, and vice versa. This is summed up in the Uncertainty Principle that Heisenberg formulated; the uncertainty in the position of a particle, times the uncertainty in its speed, is always greater than a quantity called Planck's constant, divided by the mass of the particle.
Laplace 's vision, of scientific determinism, involved knowing the positions and speeds of the particles in the universe, at one instant of time. So it was seriously undermined by Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle. How could one predict the future, when one could not measure accurately both the positions, and the speeds, of particles at the present time? No matter how powerful a computer you have, if you put lousy data in, you will get lousy predictions out.
Einstein was very unhappy about this apparent randomness in nature. His views were summed up in his famous phrase, 'God does not play dice'. He seemed to have felt that the uncertainty was only provisional: but that there was an underlying reality, in which particles would have well defined positions and speeds, and would evolve according to deterministic laws, in the spirit of Laplace. This reality might be known to God, but the quantum nature of light would prevent us seeing it, except through a glass darkly.
Einstein's view was what would now be called, a hidden variable theory. Hidden variable theories might seem to be the most obvious way to incorporate the Uncertainty Principle into physics. They form the basis of the mental picture of the universe,
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