Radioactive Decay is Causeless?

[YT2095]

indeed true...

 

we Return you now to your Regularly Scheduled Program

[Riogho]

"The electroweak interaction only happens during certain circumstances."

 

What circumstances? (And how does the nucleus "sample" the external world to find out if these circumstances apply?)

 

It isn't the circumstances of the outside world that affect it, but the circumstances inside the nucleus that cause the weak interaction.

[John Cuthber]

"It isn't the circumstances of the outside world that affect it, but the circumstances inside the nucleus that cause the weak interaction."

Fair enough, what are they (I have a feeling I asked that before)?

 

(Incidentally, if God doesn't exist then the problem of causing Him goes away.)

[Riogho]

When the energy gets high enough to produce the corresponding particle.

[YT2095]

 

(Incidentally, if God doesn't exist then the problem of causing Him goes away.)

 

same applies to Dark matter/energy

 

I`m not one for burying my head in that sand though, a whole LOAD of things would be more "Convenient" if we don`t acknowledge them.

[Riogho]

I find the Big Bang Model is infinitely more convenient if we acknowledge a God.

[SkepticLance]

To iNow

"Turtles all the way down?"

Are you a Terry Pratchett fan?

 

Anyway, the decay of a nucleus by alpha decay mechanism still appears to be due to quantum randomness. ie. causeless.

 

Similarly, as was mentioned by John, the Casimir Effect is demonstration of vacuum energy. This is pairs of particles popping into existence for no reason at all. ie. Causeless.

 

Those particles, near the horizon of a black hole may attain true reality, and live on (Hawking radiation). Something comes into existence and that has no cause.

 

If you dispute this, you dispute quantum randomness.

[Riogho]

To iNow

"Turtles all the way down?"

Are you a Terry Pratchett fan?

 

Anyway, the decay of a nucleus by alpha decay mechanism still appears to be due to quantum randomness. ie. causeless.

 

Similarly, as was mentioned by John, the Casimir Effect is demonstration of vacuum energy. This is pairs of particles popping into existence for no reason at all. ie. Causeless.

 

Those particles, near the horizon of a black hole may attain true reality, and live on (Hawking radiation). Something comes into existence and that has no cause.

 

If you dispute this, you dispute quantum randomness.

 

Alpha decay happens because all of that crap has energy and some gets more energy, enough energy in fact to break the color force, and shoot off from the nucleus.

 

Kind of like evaporation.

[Mr Skeptic]

"The electroweak interaction only happens during certain circumstances."

 

What circumstances? (And how does the nucleus "sample" the external world to find out if these circumstances apply?)

 

Exactly.

 

Anyway, I'm still waiting for someone to explain what caused God. If the theists are permitted an uncaused God that breaches the laws of cause and effect (but without having to produce any evidence for Him) then I don't see why I can't say that the big bang has no cause. Perhaps it was similar to (albeit unimaginably bigger and longer lasting than ) the real observable popping into existence of particles.

 

Theists never have claimed an uncaused god that violates the laws of cause and effect. Eternal gods don't need (and in fact, can't have) causes. The non-eternal gods are usually born from other gods or nature things. The atheists lost their eternal universe with the big bang, which showed that the universe appears finite in time, hence had a start. Since the big bang is an effect, it requires a cause. (This is why the cyclical universe model had some popularity, as it allows for an eternal universe despite the big bang.)

 

The Casimir effect shows us that things flit into existence briefly. The spontaneous, uncaused, existence of particles is a real property of the universe. All it takes is one phenomenally large example and you have a big bang.

 

Perhaps. But I don't think any scientist is allowed to say things are uncaused, as it is effectively the same thing as saying god caused them (ie, we don't know and don't care). It would also require dropping the law of cause and effect.

 

Putting God into this just adds to the difficulty. It's easier to come up with a big bang than a thinking, deliberately acting, God; just look at the relative complexity of the 2 ideas.

 

No, eternal God himself is easy to explain. If you want people to pull their hair out, you can ask what caused God to create the world (as that is an effect and requires a cause). I'm not sure if that kind of thing can even have an explanation (an infinite chain of effects that cause god to create the universe somewhere after infinite time). Perhaps god counted 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 ... every second until he got to 2, then created earth? Of course, this is where most would invoke free free will, which seems by necessity to also be metaphysical.

 

If you dispute this, you dispute quantum randomness.

 

And if I do? Do you dispute the law of cause and effect?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Can we drop the religious discussion and stick to radioactive decay? This is making me nervous.

[SkepticLance]

To DrDNA

 

The 'law' of cause and effect breaks down at the quantum level.

 

If you fire a photon at a double slit, will it go through left or right? There is no cause and effect answer. There are, instead, answers based on quantum weirdness. Cause and effect is, ultimately, about everyday intuition. I don't know about you, but my everyday intuition does not cope with quantum weirdness. Cause and effect does not apply to all situations at the quantum level.

[Severian]

Alpha decay happens because all of that crap has energy and some gets more energy, enough energy in fact to break the color force, and shoot off from the nucleus.

 

Kind of like evaporation.

 

As has been pointed out before, that is not the cause - that is the mechanism. They are very different things.

 

To put it another way, I can have a quantum mechanical system with the correct parameters (energy etc) to decay to a lower energy state, that 'chooses' not to decay for some measurable amount of time. What is the physics which sets that time? Why didn't it decay earlier? What 'caused' it to decay at that particular time?

[John Cuthber]

"And if I do? Do you dispute the law of cause and effect?"

Yes.

I say that, while some people might be uncomfortable with it, nuclear decay is truly random. Pinning it on quantum fluctuations lending the energy to the nucleus to get it to decay just moves the random bit from the nucleus to empty space.

 

The other interpretation is that it is "caused by empty space" ie by nothing. It has no cause.

 

God plays dice.

[Mr Skeptic]

"And if I do? Do you dispute the law of cause and effect?"

Yes.

I say that, while some people might be uncomfortable with it, nuclear decay is truly random. Pinning it on quantum fluctuations lending the energy to the nucleus to get it to decay just moves the random bit from the nucleus to empty space.

 

The other interpretation is that it is "caused by empty space" ie by nothing. It has no cause.

 

God plays dice.

 

Fair enough, but then you give up any hope to ever learn the cause (by assuming there is none, hence not looking). While I must admit that true randomness seems to be the case, I prefer to keep open the possibility that there is an explanation for it but we just don't know it. I guess I just have philosophical problems with a scientist accepting that something has no explanation.

[SkepticLance]

Mr Skeptic

 

Fear not. There are lots of scientists looking for an underlying reality which will bring quantum physics into the everyday world of cause and effect. It just does not look much like they are succeeding.

[fredrik]

Fair enough, but then you give up any hope to ever learn the cause (by assuming there is none, hence not looking). While I must admit that true randomness seems to be the case, I prefer to keep open the possibility that there is an explanation for it but we just don't know it. I guess I just have philosophical problems with a scientist accepting that something has no explanation.

 

I don't know what John's real view is but to me, there is no implication between acknowledging a lack of cause and the constancy of this conclusion.

 

ie. That there is no explanation, does not imply that there can't be one in a possible "future". The meaning of this is actually quite deep.

 

To me, the trick is to not exclude the unexpected. So I see no contradiction at all between learning, and acknowledging your incompleteness. Because by the same token our knowledge of causes are incomplete, our knowledge of our own incompleteness is incomplete.

 

This OTOH doesn't mean we will overcome this incompleteness, it just means we don't know, it does not we can never know. That statement makes no sense to me. I'm perfectly comfortable with this, and I consider myself very philosophical minded.

 

/Fredrik

[swansont]

I guess I just have philosophical problems with a scientist accepting that something has no explanation.

 

No explanation but follows a pattern. Science is an investigation of how how nature behaves, but not necessarily why it behaves that way. (the latter is left to others)

[SkepticLance]

I know some people disagree with me, but in my own very humble opinion, understanding causes and mechanisms, while important, is secondary in science.

 

Science first must start with obtaining clear cut and reliable data. That data often points to phenomena that are not understood. The lack of understanding of the phenomena do not in any way make those phenomena go away.

 

Science works towards understanding the causes and mechanisms behind those phenomena. However, it is still scientific to work with phenomena that remain unexplained. A good example is quantum randomness.

 

No-one REALLY understands quantum actions, though they can be described mathematically. Science can work with them, though, and make predictions based on what we know of them, and even design new gadgets of great value based on the quantum effects we do not truly understand.

 

Alpha decay is the result of a quantum effect - the uncertainty of position. This means that a change in position due to a low probability action can lead to a nucleus decaying. This effect is essentially random. Thus, to the best of our knowledge, having no specific cause for that particular nucleus decaying.

[Riogho]

Except that it's unstable.

[granpa]

could the cause be nonlocal? some kind of entanglement?

[Vexer]

I think 'Mr Skeptic's' understanding is correct - there is no apparent trigger for an individual decay. It is 'causeless' in the usual human sense.

 

 

'Lance wrote:

Since the basic reason for the decay is quantum uncertainty, then effectively there is no specific cause. Am I wrong?

 

Only if our theories are wrong (which they almost certainly are).

 

 

 

I agree with Foofighter - it's apparent causelessness. Pretty interesting and disturbing.

 

His question was: are there any other examples?

[thedarkshade]

I think 'Mr Skeptic's' understanding is correct - there is no apparent trigger for an individual decay. It is 'causeless' in the usual human sense.

I understand this might be the current view, but to me the consequence without the cause seems meaningless. It's not very logical!

[Vexer]

The "current" view is always wrong, eventually, 'Dark

[Klaynos]

The "current" view is always wrong, eventually, 'Dark

 

Incomplete not wrong.

[elas]

I know some people disagree with me, but in my own very humble opinion, understanding causes and mechanisms, while important, is secondary in science.

 

Science first must start with obtaining clear cut and reliable data. That data often points to phenomena that are not understood. The lack of understanding of the phenomena do not in any way make those phenomena go away.

 

Science works towards understanding the causes and mechanisms behind those phenomena. However, it is still scientific to work with phenomena that remain unexplained. A good example is quantum randomness.

 

No-one REALLY understands quantum actions, though they can be described mathematically. Science can work with them, though, and make predictions based on what we know of them, and even design new gadgets of great value based on the quantum effects we do not truly understand.

 

Alpha decay is the result of a quantum effect - the uncertainty of position. This means that a change in position due to a low probability action can lead to a nucleus decaying. This effect is essentially random. Thus, to the best of our knowledge, having no specific cause for that particular nucleus decaying.

 

You are treading on dangerous ground, it is a simple matter to take experimental results and published data and construct a theory that explains rather than predicts, but getting such work published or debated is impossible. Reviewers refuse to explain why the work is rejected and forum administrators move the work too to forums with demeaning titles knowing that no one of merit will visit them. But, if you read the comments of senior physicists you will find that there is a growing dissatisfaction with the current state of particle and atomic physics and the Standard model, so hopefully change is on the way.