if everything obeys the law of physics, is it theoretically possible to predict the future accurately if we know all of such laws?

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Edit: by predict the future, I mean predict every little event and it’s consequences in future, the human history and everything.

In: Physics

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

No.

In quantum physics there is a concept known as the Uncertainty Principle. Literally it says that you cannot know the precise speed and position of a particle at the same time. This happens because to know something, you have to measure it, and to measure it, you have to interact with it. Even if that interaction is as small as a single ray of light, it will still affect the particle, and you can’t know for sure what it does afterwards.

In the full sized world, you can think of it this way: Knowing the future changes the future. If you predict something, then now your own knowledge has changed, and that will affect your actions and choices.

So knowing the future requires not only knowing the future, but also knowing how knowing the future will change the future, and knowing how knowing the future will change the future will change the future, and…. so on.

Predictions could theoretically be very very precise (99.9% or more) but 100% perfect predictions are not possible. The very act of making the prediction changes what will happen.

In all likelihood the universe is deterministic (we don’t know for sure yet) in that all interactions follow predictable laws of physics, however it’s physically impossible to actually make those predictions so from our perspective we have to treat the the universe as if it is not deterministic.

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