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    God Does Play Dice with the Universe
    God Does Play Dice with the Universe
    God Does Play Dice with the Universe
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    God Does Play Dice with the Universe

    By Random Press

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    About this ebook

    Science has made a mighty advance since it originated in ancient Greece more than 2500 years ago. Yet we still live in Plato's cave today; we think everything around us moves continuously, but continuous motion is a mere shadow of the real motion. This book will lead you to the exit of the cave along a logical and comprehensible path. After passing Zeno's arrow, Newton's inertia, Einstein's light, and Schrödinger's cat, you will reach the real quantum world, where every thing in the universe, whether it is an atom or a ball or even a star, ceaselessly jumps in a random and discontinuous way. In a famous metaphor, God does play dice with the universe. The new idea of this book may finally solve the quantum puzzle and lead to a profound shift in our world view.

    Book & Thoughts Reviews:

    I enjoyed reading it.
    ---- Tommaso Dorigo, experimental particle physicist and blogger, University of Padova, Italy

    Its very existence is at any rate, an excellent illustration of the extent to which physical data force us to depart from commonsense ideas when we try to depict reality “as it really is”.
    ---- Bernard d'Espagnat, theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, Templeton Prize 2009 Laureate

    Your book and thoughts are worth reading.
    ---- Fred Alan Wolf, quantum physicist, National Book Award winning author of Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists

    The idea of using discontinuous motion as a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is original.
    ---- Reviewer of Foundations of Physics

    I fully agree with your idea of discontinuous movement.
    ---- Antoine Suarez, quantum physicist, Center for Quantum Philosophy, Zurich

    If it goes through, this would be an original and significant contribution to the debate over the nature of motion.
    ---- Reviewer of American Philosophical Quarterly

    It is a wonderful illumination of the discrete/continuum problem... Everyone should enjoy your concise writing style and, more so, the poetic repeats of what God does or does not do with dice.
    ---- Joseph Mazur, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Marlboro College, PEN Award winning author of Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Mathematics

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom Press
    Release dateAug 8, 2012
    ISBN9781476349589
    God Does Play Dice with the Universe
    Author

    Random Press

    Shan Gao received his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Physics from University of Sydney in 2013. He is a theoretical physicist and philosopher of physics, whose major interests are foundations of quantum mechanics, philosophy of physics, history of modern physics, and philosophy of mind. His original ideas, including random discontinuous motion, quantum superluminal communication and quantum panpsychism, have been published in professional journals such as International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Foundations of Physics, Minds and Machines, Journal of Consciousness Studies, and so on. He is the author of God Does Play Dice with the Universe, Quantum Physics: From Illusion to Reality, Understanding Quantum Physics: An Advanced Guide for the Perplexed and several other books. His first popular science book Quantum (in Chinese) is very successful, and it has sold more than ten thousands copies in China during the last few years. For more details please visit http://gucas.academia.edu/ShanGao.

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      Book preview

      God Does Play Dice with the Universe - Random Press

      God Does Play Dice with the Universe

      By Shan Gao

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Shan Gao

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      OTHER WORKS BY SHAN GAO

      Quantum Motion and Superluminal Communication (2000, in Chinese)

      Quantum: A Historical and Logical Journey (2003, in Chinese)

      Quantum Motion: Unveiling the Mysterious Quantum World (2006)

      God Does Play Dice with the Universe (2008)

      Einstein’s Ghost: The Puzzle of Quantum Entanglement (coauthored with G. C. Guo, 2009, in Chinese)

      God Does Play Dice (2010, in Chinese)

      Quantum Physics: From Illusion to Reality (2011)

      Quantum, Relativity, Consciousness and Beyond: A Scientific Quest for Ultimate Reality (2011)

      Understanding Quantum Physics: An Advanced Guide for the Perplexed (2011)

      Consciousness Encounters Quantum Physics: A Scientific Argument for Panpsychism (2012)

      Understanding Gravity: Newton, Einstein, Verlinde? (2012)

      Quantum Mechanics: A Comprehensible Introduction for Students (2012)

      Parallel Worlds: Fact or Fiction? (2012)

      In memory of my ancestors,

      who wrote the great Classic of Changes

      I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.

      —Albert Einstein

      Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Preface

      1. The Riddle of Arrow

      The flying arrow cannot be moving

      Is motion an illusion?

      The sands of time

      The immobile picture of motion

      2. Seeing is Believing?

      Question of continuous motion

      The mysterious double-slit

      What does modern science say?

      3. The Cause of Motion

      Force induces motion?

      Motion has no cause

      4. God Plays Dice

      A Logical Road

      Evidences

      A mathematical viewpoint

      Two Seers

      5. Time Division Universe

      A particle is a lone cloud

      The particle cloud ripples

      Two fabrics

      Psi wave and its evolution

      The universe is an inseparable whole

      6. The Gambling Rule

      Where does the randomness go?

      Playing dice in discrete space and time

      God’s gambling rule

      The unification of two worlds

      7. The Prime Mover

      Causality and chance

      Why does God play dice?

      Who is God?

      Notes

      Bibliography

      Acknowledgements

      The ideas of this book come out of my scientific exploration in the past twenty years. I have benefited from discussions with many physicists who care about the way the world really is. They are: Samuel Braunstein, ZeXian Cao, Bernard d’Espagnat, Chris Isham, Alwyn van der Merwe, Philip Pearle, Roger Penrose, Abner Shimony, and Antoine Suarez. I thank them all deeply. At the same time, I am very grateful to my parents, QingFeng Gao and LiHua Zhao, who brought me up and gave me a good education, and my wife, HuiXia Liu. This book could not have been completed without their care and support. Finally, I am grateful to my lovely daughter RuiQi. She is full of curiosity and always asks me some naive questions about the universe. They let me constantly rethink the accepted picture of the world. She is very like I was during childhood!

      Preface

      We live in a classical world. Yet there is a ghostlike atomic world underneath. Everyone knows that a ball is composed of atoms. But nobody knows what atoms look like, and especially, how atoms move. They don't look like tiny balls at all; for instance, a single atom can pass through two slits at the same time. The more stunning fact is that we don't know exactly how a ball moves either. It appears to move in a continuous and lawful way. This, however, is a mere illusion. Even the greatest physicists Newton and Einstein were also deluded by the appearance. How on earth do objects move then?

      This book will introduce a new answer to this deep question. It is that everything in the universe, whether it is an atom or a ball or even a star, ceaselessly jumps in a random and discontinuous way. In a famous metaphor, God plays dice with the universe. If this strange picture of reality proves to be right, it may finally solve the quantum puzzle and lead to a profound shift in our world view.

      During my childhood, it had been a wonder for me that the twinkling stars strewed in the night sky don't fall to the Earth. I had a strong desire to know the whys and wherefores. Later I found the answer in textbooks. It changed my picture of the universe. When I was an undergraduate, I began to be entranced by the deep mysteries of the atomic world. I was especially stunned by the fact that the commonsense planetary picture of atoms turns out to be utterly false; the electron in an atom cannot rotate round the atomic nucleus as the Earth rotates round the sun, or else it would soon radiate its energy and fall into the nucleus, and as a result, my body composed of atoms would collapse in a blink. How does the electron move then? It must exist in the atom. It must move in some way there. But more surprisingly, textbooks provided no picture of the motion of the electron. On 22 August 1987, I wrote in my diary: Is it really true that we have no way to describe the atomic processes as processes happening in space and time? I could only search for the answer by myself. Then I started on a lonely journey to trace the elusive electron at the age of 16.

      In order to find how the electron moves in an atom, I went to the Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences to pursue my graduate study. But it was according to expectation that nobody there could give me any tips either. I then spent nearly every day in musing on the seemingly indescribable motion of electrons. If a ball indeed moves in a continuous way, then it seems that an electron or an atom should also move in the same way. The ball is composed of atoms after all. But, on the other hand, if an electron moves continuously in an atom, it will soon fall into the nucleus, while the tragedy does not happen in reality. This is a great dilemma. I found some possible solutions, but they shortly proved to be wrong.

      The puzzle had been plaguing me. Day after day, I gradually doubted the reality of continuous motion. But I still felt in my bones that the particles must move in some way. Finally, in the early morning of 12 October 1993, I experienced a sudden enlightenment. At that moment, I felt that my body permeated the whole universe and I was united with it. I disappeared. A clear picture then appeared: a particle is jumping in a random and discontinuous way. It is not inert but active; it moves purely by its own free will. Maybe God does play dice in the atomic world. I finally broke loose the tightest shackles of continuous motion with the help of inspiration. After this event, the outcome seems very natural from a logical point of view. If a particle cannot move continuously, it must move in a discontinuous way. How deep-rooted the prejudice of the uniqueness of continuous motion is!

      If an atom moves in a random and discontinuous way, then it can easily pass through two slits at the same time. But why does a ball appear to move in a contrary way? Moreover, why on earth does God play dice? These puzzles further haunted me. After graduated from the Institute of Electronics, I decided to be an independent theoretical physicist, or more accurately, a natural philosopher who aims at understanding the mysterious universe. Life was not easy. But I never gave up my research, and I never stop thinking. It had become the theme of my life.

      As time went on, the picture of random discontinuous motion became clearer and clearer in my mind. When I took a walk one afternoon in June 2001, I suddenly had another inspiration after long reflection in solitude and meditation. I realized that motion has no cause in reality, and thus it must be essentially random. Moreover, the familiar phenomenon of inertia has already revealed that a ball also jumps in a random and discontinuous way, just like an atom. This is another new idea. Maybe the path to truth is always devious in order that surprise can hide at the turn waiting for persevering seekers. God actually plays dice with the whole universe. What a harmonic world!

      I simply want to know the answer of a naive question. I simply think on it continually. But the exploration has completely changed my life.

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