The falcon flying high in the sky looking for prey has no certainty that it will find one today and have food. A daily laborer has a similar concern – am I going to get hired today? The weather forecast says there is an 80% chance of thunderstorms – the fisherman is worried; will he be able to reach the shore safely? Uncertainty – everywhere, every day.
Uncertainty originates from a lack of information and predictability. If you throw a dice any number from one to six can come up, there is no predictability of the outcome, and which face of the dice will turn up is uncertain. Suppose you are waiting for the results of a pathological test. You are anxious about whether the result will be good or bad, it’s uncertain. Actually, the related medical condition is already there only you don’t know it yet.
Uncertainty creates stress and anxiety. It shoots up your blood pressure, disturbs your sleep, and destroys your mental peace. But for some people, it’s a source of thrill that they enjoy and indulge in. Consider betting or gambling. The participants are so eager and excited! Their adrenaline running high – am I going to win or lose? Think about the faces of stakeholders in a horse race – so animated in anticipation! Their minds racing faster than the horses. They burst into joy for winning and crash into despair for losing.
In physics, there is an “uncertainty principle”. It was propounded by Nobel laureate German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927. In simple terms, the uncertainty principle says that we cannot determine accurately both the position and velocity of very small particles like electrons and photons. The more certain we are about the particle’s position the more uncertain becomes its velocity and vice versa. So, there is a trade-off between our ability to measure precisely the position and momentum of microscopic particles with negligible mass.
Actually, trade-offs are everywhere. To get something we always have to let go of something. Life is full of trade-offs. To achieve ambitious career advancement and professional success you might have to give up family time, social gatherings, vacations, and personal relaxation. To pursue a healthy lifestyle, you might have to adopt diet control relinquishing the immediate pleasure of indulgent treats. On a broader domain, there is a trade-off between the extraction of natural resources like fossil fuels, minerals, and timbers for the ultimate improvement of the standard of living and causing damage to the natural environment as well as increasing global warming.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on October 19, 2023. Please read the full article here or here.