OT Where's my royalties?

[Jon Senior]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> An 'unknown cause' implies there is a cause, we just dont
> know what it is. Einstein championed this view, it was
> called (AIUI) 'hidden local variables*', and he proposed a
> thought experiment that would show they existed, since if
> they didnt the opposite result would be ludicrous (my
> word). The thought experiment was just that, because it
> was 'impossible' to actually carry out such an experiment.
> The experiment became a reality some 50-60 years later,
> and the result was the 'ludicrous' one. Hence, there are
> no hidden but unknown factors causing the decay. Hence my
> comment, there are no unknown causes either!

You do appreciate, I'm sure, that the concept of a "known
unknown" is a paradox. How do you know that there is nothing
there that you don't know?

Jon (Who's starting to sound like Rumsfeld!)

 

[Tumbleweed]

"Jon Senior" <jon@restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk.remove> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
> > An 'unknown cause' implies there is a cause, we just
> > dont know what it
is.
> > Einstein championed this view, it was called (AIUI)
> > 'hidden local variables*', and he proposed a thought
> > experiment that would show they existed, since if they
> > didnt the opposite result would be ludicrous (my word).
> > The thought experiment was just that, because it was
> > 'impossible'
to
> > actually carry out such an experiment. The experiment
> > became a reality
some
> > 50-60 years later, and the result was the 'ludicrous'
> > one. Hence, there
are
> > no hidden but unknown factors causing the decay. Hence
> > my comment, there
are
> > no unknown causes either!
>
> You do appreciate, I'm sure, that the concept of a "known
> unknown" is a paradox. How do you know that there is
> nothing there that you don't know?
>
> Jon (Who's starting to sound like Rumsfeld!)

You'll have to ask the folks who did the experiment or read
a book on Quantum Mechanics to find that out in detail. But
it wasnt that there was nothing you didnt know, just that
there were no 'hidden wheels and cogs' (is this getting back
on topic for cycling) lets say, inside a neutron (for
example) that might cause it to decay at random, and we just
didnt have access to those 'hidden wheels and cogs' to see
why the neutron decayed at a particular instant. The
experiment proved that there aren't hidden wheels and cogs*.
QM is very weird (or more likely, we just arent clever
enough to appreciate
it). Richard feynman, one of the cleverest people that ever
lived, stressed that though we (well, him) knew how to do
the sums to get the right answers, we didnt know what it
actually meant, and that you shouldnt even try and
understand what it meant, because you couldnt!

* Strictly speaking, AIUI , it proved there werent any
hidden wheels and cogs inside that neutron. They
still might be hidden somewhere else
entirely.....unknown unknowns?

--
Rumsfeld

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