Does True Randomness Exist?

Everything is random, depending on how much you know

When a layperson thinks of randomness, they think of the outcome of rolling a fair die or tossing a coin. If you roll a fair die, any of the six probable outcomes have an equal chance of showing up. Non technically, we understand that the outcome of rolling the dice was not a result of any known deterministic factor. It showed out of randomness.

A phenomenon is random if the outcome happens haphazardly, unpredictably, or by chance. Broadly, there are two types of randomness;

Randomness due to lack of knowledge: Also called classical randomness, occurs when an outcome seems random to us, but only because of our present understanding or insufficient understanding of science and nature. That means, if we get to know (by experimentation or by advance in science) all the interaction of the factors that affect the phenomenon, we may consider it as predictable and, therefore, nonrandom.

Take, for example, the rolling of a die. If you roll a die, we can say, so far as we can tell, that the outcome is random. That is predicated on the fact that each of the six probable outcomes has the same chances of showing up, and we cannot predict with accuracy what the outcome of the roll would be. However, the rolling of the die is only random because we have not calculated or experimented to know the velocity of the toss, the viscosity of the air, the acceleration due to gravity, and the friction of the table — the variables that determine the outcome of the toss. If these variables are known, it becomes possible to predict the outcome of the roll, as researchers have shown.

Randomness as a fundamental property of nature: Also called True randomness, is when a phenomenon is intrinsically random and not dependent on our knowledge of the phenomenon. The best we know about true randomness is in quantum physics. There are a couple of phenomena in the quantum space that show true randomness. Quantum physicists tell us that no matter how much we advance in knowledge, we still wouldn’t predict the outcome of some quantum phenomena. One of which is radioactive decay.

When two or more atoms of radioactive isotopes, which are not just similar but identical, are put in a chamber and allowed to decay, they each decay at a different time despite having identical properties. The half-life of each atom is random. In other words, it is impossible to predict the half-life of atoms of radioactive isotopes.

Tim Andersen, Ph.D., In his article, randomness may just be fractal mixing, explains the difference between chaos and randomness and attributes what we perceive as randomness as the interplay between determinism and chaos, but not randomness.

Tim makes sense of the randomness versus determinism debate using the baker’s map theory. Baker’s map is used in dynamic system theory to explain the random outcome of components of the dough, as can be observed when a baker kneads. After many iterations of cutting the dough into two, stacking one over the other, and compressing them, the components become random.

According to Tim,

I believe that the universe is not fundamentally random. God does not play dice. Rather, God is a baker who bakes all the way from the scale of the universe down to the Planck length. Smaller than that and the baking stops. Even when it comes to quantum phenomena, it is all just baking, but in one additional dimension, with space and time itself being kneaded.

We can infer from historical facts that what is now observed as true randomness, even at the quantum level, may become classical randomness. In science, “truth” changes. When we understand quantum systems better, we may make different conclusions on the nature of their randomness.

It won’t be surprising if many of what we know as facts now concerning the unpredictability of the atoms turn out to be deterministic. Einstein has been quoted as saying “God doesn’t play dice”. Well, only time will tell if God truly plays dice or he is doing some maths behind the scene.