Laplace’s Demon — Is Future Pre-Determined?

[This blog titled,  India -- A Developed Nation By 2020? was originally written at Sulekha -- 13 years back when APJ Abdul Kalam was the President of India. Reproducing this at blogger.com, now that we are at the fag months of 2020 !] India -- A Developed Nation By 2020? Our glamour driven media has been talking of India as the super-power in waiting. Our President has dreams of India being a "developed nation" by the year 2020. Now that we have dismantled the "socialistic" model, all we need to do is to let the Gurubhais (or Dhirubhais) do their job. We already have a booming share market; and a surging GDP. We have more billionaires in India today, than they have in Japan. Right? By 2020 we will be an economic super power. Where is the doubt? What about poverty? To remove poverty, you need to generate wealth, right? How can we distribute poverty? (Isn't that what our good Finance Minster Mr. Chidambaram recently pointed out?) Okay, now that we have dared to d...

 Laplace's Demon -- Is Future Pre-Determined? Early in the 19th century, the French mathematician and astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace claimed that if some entity could  know the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe then it could use Newton's laws to reveal the entire course of cosmic events, past and future. This hypothetical all-knowing entity later came to be referred to as "Laplace's Demon" . Implicit in Laplace's claim is the presumption that future is "pre-determined". Many people question this presumption -- mainly in view of "uncertainties" in the world of the atom, and particularly in Quantum Mechanics.  However, it would seem that this is not a valid refutation of "determinism". The "uncertainty principle" of modern physics concerns the "tolerance band" that limits "measurement" and "observation" -- and not about the impossibility of future  actually  being pr...