God's Existence and Buddhist
philosophy: An Interesting Debate -2
Radio Active Decay and Quantum Fluctuation- Really
uncaused?
Vir Gupta Showed his
doubt while I mentioned about the non-causal nature of quantum phenomena to
refute the first premise of Kal�m Cosmological Argument. He responded
in MM with the following statement:
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Avijit, you wrote: "In the radioactive decay of an atomic
nucleus, an alpha, beta, or gamma particle begins to exist
spontaneously, without a cause."
I
do not know from where you got the idea that radioactive decay
without a cause. Radioactive decay occurs mostly due to
electrostatic forces arising out of too many protons in the
nucleus. There is a certain ratio of neutrons to protons is
required for nucleus to be stable. Decay can also occur in some
cases due to chemical environment. Please read below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decay
There
are forces in the nucleus that oppose each other, notably the
strong force holding
protons and
neutrons to each other and the
electrostatic force of protons repelling other protons. In
many arrangements of protons and neutrons the electrostatic
force causes instability in the nucleus causing it to decay. It
will continue to decay until it reaches a stable combination.
Nearly all
decay products are themselves radioactive, giving rise to
decay chains which eventually end in a stable
nuclide.
... (
Read more...) |
Dear Vir: At first we
need to know what "Causality" means scientifically. In physics, the
concept that for certain pairs of events, a and b, event a must occur for
event b to occur. That is, there is complete statistical correlation (100%
to a zillion zeroes) between a and b and it is a direct correlation going
from a to b. In that case we can say that event b has a cause. But if
an event b that is not dependent on the occurrence of any previous event(s)
may be said to occur without a cause. Radioactive decay is one example of
such a truly spontaneous event, one that occurs without cause.
Again in other way:
Radioactive decay has been described as a random phenomenon which may be
characterized statistically. This phenomenon truly random (outside the
traditional laws of cause and effect).
Check this link:
http://serc.carleton.edu/quantskills/methods/RadDecay.html
"[T]he energy involved in the
phenomena of radioactivity...becomes manifest as an emission of rays
which...occurs spontaneously without any known cause of excitation..."
-- Mme. Marie Curie, Nobel Lecture,
December 11, 1911
Also Aparthib, Brent Meeker, Victor
Stenger's responses could be a help for the readers:
Vir Gupta also sent
a second
feedback to my answer, where he wrote
| ...
Buddhist principle that nothing exists without a cause is
universally applicable, right from the beginning of the
universe. There is no exception to this rule. .
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Well Vir, your lord Buddha with no
offense [:-)], I presume was not familiar with Quantum mechanics. The
quantum world is quite different compared to classical world. Quantum
mechanics is usually pictured as a great revolutionary break, a giant
"paradigm shift", away from classical mechanics. Buddha's law, "nothing
exists without a cause" which you think universally applicable, is not
true for quantum world. Let me quote from Physicist Victor Stenger (Emeritus
Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Hawaii and Adjunct
Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado) on so-called
"universally applicable" Buddhist rule :
"... Perhaps it is
intuitively obvious for him, but not to physicist like myself. Quantum
phenomenon, such as atomic transitions and radioactive decay of nuclei,
seem to happen without prior cause. In fact, the highly successful
theory of quantum mechanics does not predict the occurence of these
events, just their probabilities for taking place;... we have no current
basis for assuming such cause exist. After all Quantum mechanics is
almost a century old and has been utilized with immense success over the
period, with no sign of such causes ever being found (Has Science Found
God? : The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe , pp
173)
There are some more quote from
famous physicists (available in the Net) on how Quantum fluctuation works :
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html
"In the everyday world,
energy is always unalterably fixed; the law of energy conservation is a
cornerstone of classical physics. But in the quantum microworld, energy
can appear and disappear out of nowhere in a spontaneous and
unpredictable fashion." (Prof. Paul Davies, God and the New Physics.
London: J.M. Dent & Sons)
"...the idea of a First Cause
sounds somewhat fishy in light of the modern theory of quantum
mechanics. According to the most commonly accepted interpretation of
quantum mechanics, individual subatomic particles can behave in
unpredictable ways and there are numerous random, uncaused events."
(Richard Morris, Achilles in the Quantum World. New York: Henry Holt &
Co., 1997)
The following article of Quentin Smith explains the
The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe quite elaborately (a bit technical
for general readers)
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/uncaused.html
Buddha and some other philosophers
perhaps developed their rules (before 8th century AD) based on intuition and
common sense. You know what common sense is. It's the human intuition and
common sense that told us that Earth was flat for centuries. Objective
observation, on the other hand, tells us that Earth is round.
Avijit
Wed Nov 10, 2004
It seemed my above response could not satisfy Vir
completely. So he came with his arguments again...
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