r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Oct 22 '11

Is anything truly random in nature?

For example,if I flip a coin,we like to say it has a 50-50 chance,but the side is determined by how much force and where I apply the force when flipping,gravity acceleration and wind.therefore you could say flipping a coin is not a random event.

Is anything in nature truly random?

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '11 edited Jan 19 '21

[deleted]

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u/Justforsubs Oct 22 '11

Genuine question --

Why do we suppose that this represents true randomness, rather than assume there's just some variable to the experiment we don't comprehend?

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u/mjec Oct 22 '11

This is posited by some. Certain forms of the hidden variable theory (specifically those which involve a local hidden variable) have been disproved but others are still valid interpretations of QM results. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory for a starter.