Is random actually random?

Tommy B

Tommy B

Tommy B

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Sorry for this extremely geeky question, but I still think it's quite interesting.

If you write down the winning lottery numbers, go back in time and use the same numbers on your ticket, would they still come up? Surely if it is a random process then the numbers would be different?
 
This is the problem with the premise of time travel. It would be necessary for it to happen again given that it is in the past in your lifetime, you would simply be viewing it again.

Of course, this depends on how you perceive the way time works.
 
Well its not actually random since everything is a result of previous events. But predicting exactly how the balls will fall and which ones will be selected by the lottery machine would be too complicated, as it involves many variables and millions or billions of seperate 'events'.

Time travel is a whole different matter entirely.
 
Tommy B said:
Sorry for this extremely geeky question, but I still think it's quite interesting.

If you write down the winning lottery numbers, go back in time and use the same numbers on your ticket, would they still come up? Surely if it is a random process then the numbers would be different?
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But if they did come up again it could just be coincidence , and not help prove the theory either way.
 
The way lottery numbers are selected is not true randomn, but is beyond any reasonable control. I think the same numbers would appear if you were to go back in time.

Have you built a time machine and now need to pay for the parts then? :p
 
I suspect even if it was possible to time travel, the butterfly effect would kick in. Just your future selfs presence is going to have a minor effect on the past that will effect these sorts of random chance.

Jokester
 
Gilly got it spot on; the problem is with how you believe time travel to work. It's not something that's actually possible (as far as we know), so it's meaningless to ask a question that involves it.
 
Johanson said:
Well its not actually random since everything is a result of previous events. But predicting exactly how the balls will fall and which ones will be selected by the lottery machine would be too complicated, as it involves many variables and millions or billions of seperate 'events'.
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You wouldn't be predicting it, you'd be viewing something that already happened, in the way I view time.
 
I don't think time travel (as in back to the future style :D ) Will ever be possible as surely someone would have come back in time to tell us?
 
XD
Either that or we are currently living in a boring period of time that no-one wants to come back and visit. :confused:
 
This got me thinking recently too, say you're at the casino and decide not to bet on this particular spin of the roulette wheel and your number comes up, you'd think, damn if only I'd betted. But if you had betted the game would have taken longer to start so the wheel would be in a different position when the ball starts going round meaning you wouldn't win. So would this sort of effect happen if you went back in time and played the lottery?
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
This got me thinking recently too, say you're at the casino and decide not to bet on this particular spin of the roulette wheel and your number comes up, you'd think, damn if only I'd betted. But if you had betted the game would have taken longer to start so the wheel would be in a different position when the ball starts going round meaning you wouldn't win. So would this sort of effect happen if you went back in time and played the lottery?
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The lottery would have started at the same time , regardless of whether you bought a ticket or not
 
OK so presume at some point in 'the future' they develope a time machine. They could use it to come back and visit their past (aka our present). So why haven't they come back to our present.
(yep I know the future hasn't happened yet)? or has it? :confused:
 
my dad bought set of numbers ages ago then he happen to discover that the same set numbers was the winning number on one saturday after 5 years
 
The same numbers would not appear again due to (amongst other things) chaos theory and a particular aspect of quantum mechanics that shows that particles do not have a precise location in space time.

So if you went back in time and everything was precisely the same (i.e. everything had the same location, same energy, same velocity etc) within a second things will be in an ever so slightly different location with different energies etc. This wouldn't be even remotely noticeable on a macroscopic scale. After time choas theory shows that these ever so small changes develop very quickly into masive changes such as different air pressure in the lotto machine which will cause a completely different set of balls to come out.

I suck at explaining things
 
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bun said:
my dad bought set of numbers ages ago then he happen to discover that the same set numbers was the winning number on one saturday which is about 5 years later
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Perhaps he set the wrong date on his time machine.
 
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