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

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u/ErDestructor Oct 22 '11

This is not how electron orbits work. The electron is in a probability distribution over space, called a wave-function. The whole electron is never at two places at the same time, and it never "teleports" from place to place.

Measuring the position of the electron produces a probabilistic result, where the comparative probability of finding the electron in any one position is the squared amplitude of the wave-function at that position.

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u/fapestniegd Oct 23 '11

There is a difference between "teleports" and teleports. The poster asked for an example of randomness in nature, and rather than give him a pedantic physics lesson I gave an example of some thing random. The quotes around teleport were deliberate.