Quantum Fluctuations?
Most recent answer: 07/29/2017
- S.R. (age 64)
Cleveland, OH, USA
The fluctuations you describe sound like a natural implication of quantum mechanics as it's often described, including by professional physicists. Nevertheless, they do not occur. At low temperature, the crystal settles into a unique lowest-energy state. Nothing fluctuates. The positions of electrons etc. do not take on sharply defined values. They're spread out, but the spread is static, not fluctuating.
The stochastic nature of the various phenomena you mention requires the presence of some thermal energy. The deep origin of the unpredictability of thermal physics remains unclear. Perhaps I should say, instead, that it seems unsurprising because nature can be in a huge number of states and there's no practical way to tell in detail which one we're in. The mystery is why the past is more predictable, less stochastic, than the future, or, as people put it technically, why the past is low entropy.
Mike W.
(published on 07/29/2017)