A hundred years have passed since Werner Heisenberg proposed the Uncertainty Principle as a description of inability to measure two things at once in the quantum world. Due to the fuzzy nature of particles like electrons, you cannot measure the speed or trajectory of such an object at the same time as knowing its position, and vice versa.
The best way to capture this mentally is to remember that while you're looking at the speedo in your car, you're not looking out the window at where you are, and while you're clocking the road-sign to tell you where you are, you can't also be looking at the speedo.
The best way to capture this mentally is to remember that while you're looking at the speedo in your car, you're not looking out the window at where you are, and while you're clocking the road-sign to tell you where you are, you can't also be looking at the speedo.
The entries you'll find while scrolling your search engine will tell you, variably, that it's not simply a matter of measuring two things at once, while others insist that it is no more than just that. Science has reached a point of no return with the U.P. and has had to grant it an extension - so now there is Expanded Uncertainty, but it's still a tale told in maths and resists implications of the wider variety. However, you'll be familiar with the fact that snowflakes and grains of sand are unique, for Nature doesn't like symmetry or straight lines, Nature likes asymmetry and turns out varieties that are all different from each other. The extent of this law, if we can call it that, is quite mind-boggling and we've no idea how far Uniqueness goes, or even why Nature is so insistent upon it.
This video looks at the implications of the Uncertainty Principle and asks politely (refusing to lower itself to Brian Cox's level) where the U.P. might be going from here.
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To join in Live discussions with me, visit the Group at www.facebook.com/groups/quantumol
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