random predictions

[AntonioLao]

To predict is meant to make a statement about the future, especially the inevitable occurrence of certain events. On the other hand, the word ‘random’ as defined in the mathematical science of statistical analysis means that these observed certain events all has equal chances for them to occur. On the one hand, by putting these two words together, in a sense, could mean no prediction. In other senses, could mean the establishment of a physical law asserted by certain physical hypotheses that were processed by the scientific method. A proper relevant question to ask is whether the progress of science can be continued and prolonged by these random predictions?

On the contrary, the word ‘postdiction’ could be used to mean any plausible explanation after the facts. Both Newtonian mechanics and Maxwellian electrodynamics used postdictions to establish physical laws. For Newton, his explanation gave the reason, for example, why an overweight ripen apple from a tree falls to the ground. For Maxwell, his explanations gave reasons why Faraday’s experimental discoveries must obey certain laws of electromagnetism. Maxwell described these using the mathematics of partial differential or integral transform equations. In these two areas of scientific discoveries (prediction and postdiction), Einstein was unequal in his full use of predictions: (1) the prediction for the equivalence of mass and energy, and (2) the prediction for the curvature of the space-time continuum. Both these predictions used highly advanced mathematics. For special theory of relativity, the mathematics is that of Lorentz transformations and imaginary complex 4-dimensional algebra. For general theory of relativity, the mathematics is that of Riemann differential geometry using invariance of the covariance and contravariance absolute differential calculus of tensor analysis. Nevertheless, at the end of the calendar year 1915, it was general covariance that finally convinced Einstein that his idea is correct. In quantum mechanics and quantum field theories, random predictions become the orders of discovery for newer physics and the birth of stochastic processes in science. However, neither Einstein nor Dirac could solve the problems of “hole” theory if the quantum vacuum fluctuations do not physically exist. In this sense, a “hole” is any infinitesimal region of the space-time continuum devoid of both matter (ordinary as well as antimatter) and energy.