[Trantor]

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So - how can something random happen?


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Randomness comes from our inability to know the exact position and velocity of particles due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. We can have vague ranges to place these values in, but never exact numbers. We can assign probabilities that the particle will be at any particular velocity and/or position at any given point in time from those boundary conditions. It will "randomly" be one of these values with it being more likely that it will be one of the values of higher probability.

You are right in that true "randomness" can not occur. It is always taken from some subset of values.

PS We also don't know any of the formulas for complicated sub-atomic particle interactions (or atomic particles for that matter). Therefore more things seem "random" because we can not come close to predicting their behaviour or probability distribution ranges.

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You are desribing chaos theory as applicable to classical sytems.

On the poster's point, the fact is all the evidence is consistant with inherent randomness at the quantum mechanical regime and it is sciences job to find out why or find contrary evidence to show it is not the case.

The fact there is no reason as to why something is the case doesn't doesn't mean it isn't so.