The Limits of Prediction: Math vs Reality
Oct 21, 2026 · 26 min · 26 segments
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Oct 21, 2026 · 26 min · 26 segments
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sir Isaac Newton found that his laws could not only explain the motion of apples, but also planets.
If the universe runs on physical laws, maybe it's like a giant clock, a machine ticking along.
If this demon had Newton's equations and unlimited brain power, it could use them to compute the past and the future of the entire universe with perfect accuracy.
In theory, the universe would be totally deterministic, like a cosmic clock where every tick follows from the one before.
For example, using Newton's gravity equations, the astronomer Edmund Halley predicted that a certain comet would return in 1758, and it did, right on time.
It was one of the earliest tests that showed Newton's physics could predict an event decades in the future.
Even today, we use classical physics to predict things, like solar eclipses in planetary orbits years or centuries ahead.
If you know where everything is and how it's moving, Newton's equations let you calculate where things will be later on.
So classical physics gave us hope that the future is written in the laws of nature, waiting to be calculated.
Sir Isaac Newton found that his laws could not only explain the motion of apples, but also planets.
If the universe runs on physical laws, maybe it's like a giant clock, a machine ticking along.
If this demon had Newton's equations and unlimited brain power, it could use them to compute the past and the future of the entire universe with perfect accuracy.
In theory, the universe would be totally deterministic, like a cosmic clock where every tick follows from the one before.
For example, using Newton's gravity equations, the astronomer Edmund Halley predicted that a certain comet would return in 1758, and it did, right on time.
It was one of the earliest tests that showed Newton's physics could predict an event decades in the future.
Even today, we use classical physics to predict things, like solar eclipses in planetary orbits years or centuries ahead.
If you know where everything is and how it's moving, Newton's equations let you calculate where things will be later on.
So classical physics gave us hope that the future is written in the laws of nature, waiting to be calculated.
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