মঙ্গলবার, ৬ নভেম্বর, ২০১২

One-Minute Physics: Why we can't predict everything

Joanna Carver, reporter

Wondering who will win the US presidential election tomorrow? Maybe you're more bothered about whether your weekend picnic is going to be rained on. Well, rest easy. Not only is it out of your control, it's also largely unpredictable.

This new animation by Henry Reich looks at whether more information could help us make more accurate predictions. If weather forecasters had a thousand times more data about the movement of clouds across the Earth, would they know for sure that it's going to rain? Similarly, would quantum mechanics still reveal only probabilities if its models were more informed?

It turns out that even with enough data, we wouldn't get perfect answers. However, predictions are in high demand. A group of seismologists in Italy were recently charged with manslaughter, and sentenced to six years in prison, for falsely reassuring the residents of the town of L'Aquila that a major earthquake was not going to happen. After observing small tremors for months, they found that a big earthquake was possible, but couldn't make an accurate prediction.

If you're concerned about the election tomorrow, it's probably best just to watch it unfold. It can't be predicted to a stitch, even though we've given it a shot.

If you enjoyed this video, check out our previous One-Minute Physics episodes such as how to travel through the Earth or why the Higgs is the missing link.

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