The Heisenberg uncertainty principle involves particles in quantum level, where the physical properties like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. One of the reasons is it exhibits wave particle duality.

I would say it is part of the GUT (Grand Unify Theory) or in this context, the theory of everthing.

The idea from both Heisenberg and Bohr on quantum mechanics were not widely accepted in the eyes of Einstein, as he said "God does not play dice".

However, almost all observation in quantum level suggests that the behavior of properties on wave-particle were indeed random.

Yup, Einstein didn't like the idea of randomness. I believe almost everyone would prefer order rather then chaos

While Dr. Michio used Carp to explain the multiple dimensions idea (Yes, I read your long post, Awakened_Angel ), Stephen Hawking used Monkeys, he used Turtles too in his book A brief history of time, another scientist Paul used two-dimensional creature (let's called it worm) to explain the grand unified theory.

Imagine a machine-gunner facing a target screen. As he fires the gun, he sweeps his aim at a steady rate from side to side. The end result is a pattern of equal spaced bullet holes. Now a 2D creature (worm) which lives in the screen would perceive this sequence of events as the regular appearance of holes in his world. With careful observation he would deduce that the holes are not formed at random, but periodically, and moreover they are arranged in a geometrical simple way, with equal distance between them. Confidently this worm would proclaim a new law of flatland physics: The law of hole creation. He would conclude that the appearance of each hole causes the appearance of the next in line, in a regular way. After all, one hole is always followed by another in a simple sequence. From the limited perspective of his 2D world, the worm misses entirely the fact that the holes are actually "completely independent" of each other, and the regularity in their arrangement is due entirely to the "random activity" of the machine-gunner.

In the limited 2D view of the worm, the law of hole creation is true and he was the Einstien of its kind. However, when looking at the larger view 3D, ... or 11D, the so called law is nothing but a pure random act.

From our limited perspective within the spacetime (4D), aren't we all behave like the "worm"?

We all would rejoice if GUT (Grand Unified Theory) is solved one day, however the true meaning behind it may not be as pleasant, it could be painful to certain extend.

Like what Steven Weinberg have quoted : "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."

He believed that the more we understand about the origin of the universe and its evolution on the grandest scale, the more we realize that human life is the outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back 15 billion years to the earliest moments of creation.

Steven Weinberg is the Nobel winner physicist. He was awarded the Nobel prize for his contributions to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, which is part of the GUT.

A cat is put in a box with 50% chance of the poison gas will be released within 2 minutes. If the gas releases, the cat die. If not, the cat alive. We wait for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, without opening the box, is the cat alive or dead?

The answer is the cat is in half dead/half alive state.

Many people say this result is ridicules, as their brains have been long "trained/damaged" by the incomplete/incorrect frog view paradigm of the world. They say (Are you one of them?) the cat is either dead or alive, cannot be in half dead/half alive state.

This is the famous Schrodinger cat to explain the Quantum Mechanics characteristic. In subatomic level, the behavior of electron or other sub particles are purely random in nature. To predict where the electron is going to exite is meaningless. All we can do is to study the probability of it behaviors.

There are two branches of paradigms on how we perceive the world.

1) The "frog" view (Aristotelian paradigm)
The subjectively perceive of the world is "physically" real, and the mathematical language is merely an approximation.
Or

Maths/Science is just an approximation of how we view our real physical world

In our childhood (even in majority of university syllabus), we were taught to observe the world using "frog" view, that said, the truth is out there, our maths/sciences merely approx it.

Eg. Classical Newton mechanic, Gravity, Special/General theory of relativity.

2) The "bird" view (Platonic paradigm)

The mathematical structure is physical real, and all human language we use to describe it is merely an approximation for describing our subjective perceptions. Eg, the Schrodinger cat.
Or
How we view our world is just an approximation or merely a perception, not necessary real, maths/science equation covers all possible physically real scenarios.

When Plank, Neil Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger proposed Quantum Mechanics, it revolutionized the way we perceive the world, that said, the "bird" view, how we perceive the world is just a perception, a probability, not necessary real. What is real is we could express mathematically about the behaviour of subatomic particles using forier, laplace or matrix functions.

This is where Einstein did not agree with, as he mentioned God doesn't play dice. For him, universe is deterministic while quantum mechanic suggests that it is free willing.

If Theory Of Everything (Quantum Mechanic, Gravity, Strong force, Weak force) (TOE) has been successfully derived, it shows us that the equation is "real" and it represents all possible outcome of reality. Reality is no longer like what we perceive as it could be misleading. The impacts:

- We would have different view in the context of free will or determinism. In fact, it already influences our view now
- It challenges our religion view of the deterministic universe
- Our education would be leaning more towards bird view, rather that the restricted frog view

One thing for sure is human being have tendency of throwing away any new ideas that contradicts with what they learned/hold for a very long time "even though the new ideas is the correct/better one". The old/wrong ideas that has been implanted way long ago will stubbornly stay forever.

Sad, isn't it.

This post has been edited by nice.rider: Dec 1 2009, 06:29 PM