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The value of Einstein’s mistakes

Ravi V. Gomatam

Published Apr 1, 2006• 0 citations

Abstract

Steven Weinberg writes, “Einstein rejected the notion that the laws of physics could deal with probabilities, famously decreeing that God does not play dice with the cosmos. But history gave its verdict against Einstein—quantum mechanics went on from success to success, leaving Einstein on the sidelines.”Einstein did not reject quantum theory merely because it is probabilistic. He wrote: “There is no doubt that quantum mechanics has seized hold of a beautiful element of truth, and that it will be a test stone for any future theoretical basis.” 1 1. A. Einstein, quoted in J. Wheeler, W. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1983), p. 8. Nor was Einstein unilaterally opposed to God playing dice. He expected God to either play dice all the way or not at all. If individual events were totally undetermined, then the overall events should also be undetermined, and not display remarkable regularity. “In for the penny, in for the pound,” he wrote. Thus, a more accurate quote from Einstein about God and dice playing is the following:“That the Lord should play with dice, all right; but that He should gamble according to definite rules, that is beyond me.” 1 1. A. Einstein, quoted in J. Wheeler, W. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1983), p. 8. REFERENCESection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCE <<1. A. Einstein, quoted in J. Wheeler, W. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1983), p. 8. Google Scholar© 2006 American Institute of Physics.

DOI: 10.1063/1.4797357

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Steven Weinberg writes, “Einstein rejected the notion that the laws of physics could deal with probabilities, famously decreeing that God does not play dice with the cosmos. But history gave its verdict against Einstein—quantum mechanics went on from success to success, leaving Einstein on the sidelines.”Einstein did not reject quantum theory merely because it is probabilistic. He wrote: “There is no doubt that quantum mechanics has seized hold of a beautiful element of truth, and that it will be a test stone for any future theoretical basis.” 1 1. A. Einstein, quoted in J. Wheeler, W. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1983), p. 8. Nor was Einstein unilaterally opposed to God playing dice. He expected God to either play dice all the way or not at all. If individual events were totally undetermined, then the overall events should also be undetermined, and not display remarkable regularity. “In for the penny, in for the pound,” he wrote. Thus, a more accurate quote from Einstein about God and dice playing is the following:“That the Lord should play with dice, all right; but that He should gamble according to definite rules, that is beyond me.” 1 1. A. Einstein, quoted in J. Wheeler, W. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1983), p. 8. REFERENCESection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCE <<1. A. Einstein, quoted in J. Wheeler, W. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1983), p. 8. Google Scholar© 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Einstein wrote his famous sentence "God does not play dice with the universe" in a letter to Max Born in 1920. All experiments have confirmed that quantum mechanics is neither wrong nor “incomplete”. One can says that God does play dice with the universe. Let quantum mechanics be granted as the rules generalizing all results of playing some imaginary God’s dice. If that is the case, one can ask how God’s dice should look like. God’s dice turns out to be a qubit and thus having the shape of a unit ball. Any item in the universe as well the universe itself is both infinitely many rolls and a single roll of that dice for it has infinitely many “sides”. Thus both the smooth motion of classical physics and the discrete motion introduced in addition by quantum mechanics can be described uniformly correspondingly as an infinite series converges to some limit and as a quantum jump directly into that limit. The second, imaginary dimension of God’s dice corresponds to energy, i.e. to the velocity of information change between two probabilities in both series and jump.

Einstein wrote his famous sentence "God does not play dice with the universe" in a letter to Max Born in 1920. All experiments have confirmed that quantum mechanics is neither wrong nor “incomplete”. One can says that God does play dice with the universe. Let quantum mechanics be granted as the rules generalizing all results of playing some imaginary God’s dice. If that is the case, one can ask how God’s dice should look like. God’s dice turns out to be a qubit and thus having the shape of a unit ball. Any item in the universe as well the universe itself is both infinitely many rolls and a single roll of that dice for it has infinitely many “sides”. Thus both the smooth motion of classical physics and the discrete motion introduced in addition by quantum mechanics can be described uniformly correspondingly as an infinite series converges to some limit and as a quantum jump directly into that limit. The second, imaginary dimension of God’s dice corresponds to energy, i.e. to the velocity of information change between two probabilities in both series and jump.

Soon after the initial development of quantum mechanics Albert Einstein made the famous statement that he could not conceive of a God that ‘plays dice’. The theologians we considered in the previous chapter seize upon this claimed indeterminacy and have linked it to a theology of special divine action. As we have seen, however, there has been little technical discussion of the possibilities for SDA in quantum theory. It is the aim of this chapter to evaluate this work from a scientific perspective and consider the extent to which God can be said to ‘cheat’ at playing dice. The approach adopted in this chapter is again to consider the claim for quantum SDA in its most basic form – namely the possibility of God determining all or only some quantum events. We shall leave to one side the many different theological motivations for this claim, and consider in detail whether it is a proposal that appears consonant with our current understanding of quantum mechanics. The most constructive approach to assessing the claims considered in the previous chapter is to push the claim that quantum SDA objectively exists as far as possible and examine more closely which theoretical features of quantum mechanics may be taken in support of a notion of non-interventionist SDA. As we saw in chapters 3 and 4, this will necessarily involve a detailed discussion of the understanding of indeterminism in quantum theory and, as we shall see, shall raise the possibility of both compatibilist and incompatibilist interpretations of SDA.

Albert Einstein made fundamental contributions to the development of quantum mechanics. However, he was never satisfied with the quantum worldview. In fact, during most of his life he attempted to find inconsistencies and paradoxes within quantum mechanics. His famous quote "God does not play dice" shows how disturbing was to Einstein one of the most important aspects of quantum mechanics: non-determinism. In this paper we will present the basic concepts of quantum mechanics, we will describe Einstein's attempts to destroy it and we will discuss why we can nowadays state that, in this regard, Albert Einstein was not right.

Einstein initially objected to the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics—the idea that God is playing at dice. Later he changed his ground, and focussed instead on the point that the Copenhagen Interpretation leads to what Einstein saw as the abandonment of physical realism. We argue here that Einstein’s initial intuition was perfectly sound, and that it is precisely the fact that quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory which is at the root of all the controversies regarding its interpretation. Probability is an intrinsically logical concept. This means that the quantum state has an essentially logical significance. It is extremely difficult to reconcile that fact with Einstein’s belief, that it is the task of physics to give us a vision of the world apprehended sub specie aeternitatis. Quantum mechanics thus presents us with a simple choice: either to follow Einstein in looking for a theory which is not probabilistic at the fundamental level, or else to accept that physics does not in fact put us in the position of God looking down on things from above. There is a widespread fear that the latter alternative must inevitably lead to a greatly impoverished, positivistic view of physical theory. It appears to us, however, that the truth is just the opposite. The Einsteinian vision is much less attractive than it seems at first sight. In particular, it is closely connected with philosophical reductionism.

Einstein's arguments concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics are reviewed and contrasted with certain misconceptions regarding his attitude toward the theory. He considered Born's statistical interpretation to be the only satisfactory one, and he was not a supporter of hidden-variable theories such as that of Bohm. His criticism of the interpretation accepted, at least tacitly, by many physicists was that the quantum state function does not provide a description of an individual system but rather of an ensemble of similar systems. This criticism was not based merely upon his famous remark that God does not play dice, but upon some definite physical arguments which did not assume determinism.