Is Nature Just Teasing Us?

Hold a piece of paper in an outstretched hand and let go, and the paper will flutter to the ground. But though the laws of physics governing its fall are perfectly known, there is not a physicist on Earth who can predict exactly where the paper will land. The fluttering is affected by the chaotic behavior of zillions of air molecules, which makes accurate prediction impossible.

The same is true of the steam rising from a tea kettle or the water in the wake of a boat, not to mention the outcome of games of chance. The most advanced physics and mathematics cannot fully explain these simple everyday phenomena and many others like them. As a result, in recent years many scientists have come to the conclusion that a certain amount of randomness and chaos is an inherent and irreducible part of the universe.

So far so good. But if nature is chaotic, quantum mechanics, the most comprehensive description of nature, should contain chaos. This is certainly consistent with the fact that quantum mechanics first gave scientists the idea that the precision of Newtonian physics may not fully explain things.

Well, ‘tain’t so, McGee. Try as they might, physicists are finding no chaos in quantum mechanics. In two recent papers in Physical Review Letters, Giulio Casati, Boris Chirikov, Italo Guarneri and Dima Shepelyansky report evidence that quantum mechanics is as predictable as can be.

We await with bated breath a fuller explanation of what’s going on here, and we are not alone. Perhaps this is the universe’s ultimate joke, teasing us mortals first one way and then the other as we try to get a handle on the world out there. Just when we got comfortable with the idea of chance, things have begun to look predictable. It’s enough to make you throw up your hands and ask, “Can we know anything, after all?” Hubris remains a distinctly human trait.

But we’re not giving up. Inquiring minds want to know. Nature does yield its secrets to our efforts, but it fights back.