What is Albert Einstein's famous quote involving god?

Answer 1

Einstein said (but in German of course), 'God does not play dice with the universe'. This was a response to the 'Copenhagen School' in relation to Quantum Physics. Werner Heisenberg called this"The Indeterminacy Principle", or sometimes "The Uncertainty Principle". He, along with the majority of quantum physicists - those belonging to the so-called Copenhagen School - concluded that the behaviour of the fundamental constituents of matter is not deterministic but indeterministic. In their view, events at the microphysical level occur "randomly", "by pure chance" - meaning that they aren't determined by any causes whatever. In a letter to Einstein in June 1927, Heisenberg wrote:

I believe that indeterminism, that is the nonvalidity of rigorous causality, is necessary, and not just consistently possible.

And Neils Bohr expressed the same view when he wrote: The renunciation of the ideal of causality in atomic physics . . . has been forced upon us.' Einstein strongly disagreed believing that Heisenberg et al had wrongly confused two different forms of causality. Einstein referred to dice throwing as this exemplifies the difference between the two. There is a 'causal determinism' as to how the dice land. In other words there are physical laws at work which explain the result but it is impossible for the observer to predict the result so there is no 'predictive determinism' possible. He claimed that the behaviour of micro particles was similar. They obeyed causal laws but we simply did not know enought to predict their behaviour. Even now this argument rumbles on and although the "The Uncertainty Principle" is currently well accepted, this may have more to do with many physicists' world view (that of an atheistic 'uncaused' chance universe) than any hard evidence. The use of 'God' was not just a figure of speech by Einstein. He was a theist. He passionately believed in a powerful (singular) God who had created the universe and its laws. He did not believe in a personal God or in an afterlife as a Christian or follower of Judaism would, but he stated many times consistently through his lfe that he did not consider himself either an atheist or a pantheist. Such claims in some recent books (by those atheists who would wish it to be so) are simply wrong.