Unpredictability
Unpredictability
The term unpredictability refers to the failure of predicting future events out of a given state of affairs with the help of scientific laws, which relate effects to causes. By establishing fundamental unpredictability within the basis of scientific description itself, quantum theory and the theory of complex systems have undermined a central conviction of classical physics namely, that precise predictability is in principle achievable. While quantum theory seems to point to a fundamental ontological indeterminism, unpredictability entailed by the theory of complex systems can be reduced to deterministic laws and is routed in the sensitivity of complex systems to minimal deviations of their initial conditions.
See also Chaos, Quantum; Chaos Theory; Physics, Quantum
dirk evers
More From encyclopedia.com
Norman Robert Campbell , Campbell, Norman Robert
physics, philosophy of science.
Campbell was educated at Eton and became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1904 he… String Theory , String theory is a proposed unified theory of fundamental physics, incorporating both particle physics and gravity. It is based on the idea that the… Quantum Electrodynamics , Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)
Quantum electrodynamics (QED) is a scientific theory that is also known as the quantum theory of light. QED describes t… Reductions , REDUCTION
A cursory glance at the history of science reveals a continuous succession of scientific theories of various areas or domains. For example,… Lev Davidovich Landau , theoretical physics.
Landau’s father was a well-known petroleum engineer who had worked int he Baku oil fields. His mother received a medical educati… Chromosome Theory Of Heredity , chromosome theory of heredity The unifying theory put forward by W. S. Sutton in 1902 that Mendel's laws of inheritance may be explained by assuming…
You Might Also Like
NEARBY TERMS
Unpredictability