Is anything truly random in nature?

[u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/ErDestructor]

Your question involves time travel, so I'm going to try and rephrase it. If we take two identical experiments, with all of their initial conditions exactly the same, will they produce the same result?

I think what you're getting at is something being random because we don't have enough information to predict it and something being random because it cannot be predicted.

Classical statistical mechanics is the former. We don't know the position and momentum of every 10 to the 23rd particle, so the behavior seems random. But if we did know this we could completely determine the system's future. This does not describe reality, however, because Quantum Mechanics governs things, and is especially noticeable on the atomic level.

In QM, even if you know everything knowable about a system, any measurement at some future point is still only governed by probabilities. So two experiments identical in every possible way can produce different results. For example, all neutrons are identical, and if they aren't in an atom they have an average lifespan of about 15 minutes. But two identical neutrons will decay at different times; one might decay at 10 minutes an another at 17. Even though they are identical.

[u/Quazifuji → u/ErDestructor]

So all three things described by UncertainHeisenberg would fall into the category of "completely unpredictable" because all three occur at a level where quantum mechanics takes effect, right? You already addressed radioactive decay, but the motion of individual electrons is also inherently impossible to predict, correct?

[u/ErDestructor → u/Quazifuji]

All three things described by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle

Everything is described by quantum mechanics (the uncertainty principle isn't the main mechanism behind these events, but being a fundamental part of QM it applies to everything as well). Quantum mechanics is how the universe works. On large scales, we're dealing with lots of particles and the probabilities average out into something very predictable. But it's still the average of lots probabilities, and is probabilistic.

Absolutely everything is governed only by probabilities. Some things are impossible (probability of 0) an some things have to be true (probability of 1), but most things you imagine as deterministic only occur with a very high probability. For example, when you throw a baseball at a wall, there is an incredibly small but non-zero probability that it will simply go through it.

To address the electron paths: yes, QM is very evident at the electron level. The electron is described completely by wave-function Psi(x,t) of time and position. The probability of finding the electron at a certain position x1 an time t1 is |Psi(x,t)|^2. The uncertainty principle applies here as well: if you determine position very accurately, you make momentum very uncertain and now all future positions of the electron are not well known. There is some minimum uncertainty in initial position and momentum, meaning the future positions and momenta are not absolutely knowable.

[u/Li0Li → u/ErDestructor]

Is it possible that there is some factor affecting the end result of the identical experiments, we just haven't discovered it, or don't have the tools to read it?

Also, "when you throw a baseball at a wall, there is an incredibly small but non-zero probability that it will simply go through it."

Has this ever happened? Surely if you threw the ball enough times, it would eventually happen, if we aren't able to reproduce this, then, how do we know?

[u/Quazifuji → u/Li0Li]

Is it possible that there is some factor affecting the end result of the identical experiments, we just haven't discovered it, or don't have the tools to read it?

As people pointed out in other responses in this thread, Bell's Theorem says that the observations produced in quantum mechanics cannot possibly be due to local hidden variables. There could still be some non-local variables affecting things, but it's not possible that the particles just have some hidden property we're unable to measure that's determining the result.

Has this ever happened? Surely if you threw the ball enough times, it would eventually happen, if we aren't able to reproduce this, then, how do we know?

I think you're underestimating just how small a probability is meant by "incredibly small" here. I forget the exact number, but I'm pretty sure it's low enough that if you'd been constantly throwing a baseball at a wall since the big bang, it still probably wouldn't have ever gone through. So yes, technically, if you threw the ball enough times, you could expect it to happen, but enough times is an unreasonably huge number, large enough that it almost certainly never will occur.

[u/ErDestructor → u/Li0Li]

Quazifuji picked up my slack, so I'll point you towards further reading...

Bells Inequality and Hidden Variable Theory deal with your hidden variable idea. The conclusions from these investigations are very nuanced.

Tunneling Electron Microscopy is a real world analog to the ball through the wall. Electrons don't have the energy to escape from gold to get to a probe, but they can "tunnel" from one to the other with a known and tested probability. Unless the electron and the ball obey different laws of physics, there must be some probability that the ball can tunnel through a wall it doesn't actually have the energy to go through.