The role of chance in the physical universe, a phenomenon unexplained. No scientist can explain it; only employ their own theories to it. To ask yourself the question, Heads or Tails?' when flipping a coin there can only be one answer. We don't know. That is the reality of chance, we simply don't know. Probability theory is ideally suited to address questions related to chance; be it tossing a coin, rolling a die or even winning the National Lottery. How many times have u thought, "I wonder if I will win the lottery?- Well it is quite simple again, we don't know. The probability is extremely unlikely and there is no way of telling if your numbers will show, but in reality everybody has a chance. Probability lies at the heart of nature, but in particular, the entire field of quantum theory is described by concepts and ideas from probability theory. A classic example can be seen in the complicated SchrÖdinger's Cat, where the probability of the cat being dead or alive is used as a method of demonstrating how dependant quantum theory really is on chance! It is through these very concepts, that I am basing my essay. With reference to my chosen subtitle; Heads or Tails', I will evaluate the title, A National Lottery, the Role of Chance in the Physical Universe'.
Many events in everyday life appear to be random, and the only way we have of predicting them is to use methods of probability. There is no way by which we can know in advance the result of tossing a coin. Indeed, for all examples of deterministic practices, a result could be calculated if we had sufficient data and sufficient skill. For instance, if we knew the exact position where a tossed coin is released and the exact value of its linear and angular momentum, then we have sufficient information to work out whether it will fall heads or tails. However, the necessary precision of the data, and the complexity of the calculation, remove any possibility that we could do so, in the practice of any system.