Is that what it dictates? I thought it was about observation (in the sense of interactions with other particles, noting to do with consciousness) inescapably and unpredictably altering the observed property.
Heisenberg says the more accurately you measure one property, the less accurately you can measure a second [related] property. The usual property pair used in explaining the principle are position and momentum.
mmm you've redescribed what the parent post was saying.
Heisenberg's principal is about the _knowability_ and not the measurement. So it's fundamental regardless of whether you measure it or not.
This is why it's impossible to cool something to absolute zero. Because fundamentally, it's position is becoming knowable, so it gains momentum, regardless if it's being measured or not.
like you don't truly know something until you measure it?
The Heisenberg uncertainty means you can't know it (i.e. it's not a value/property exists to extract), regardless if you try to measure it.
I thought Hisenberg meant the more you knew about one property (i.e. the smaller the bound on the position of a particle) the less you knew about the other property.
I'm not an expert on this, so more than happy to be corrected.
To even “know” position, one must measure it. Because electrons are always in motion, if you want to know their speed perfectly, you won’t know their position precisely. You’ll have a probability of where the electron should be, but no definite position.
That’s all Heisenberg has to say. It doesn’t talk about your observations changing the thing you observed, it doesn’t “cause” anything to happen, it is not dependent on the consciousness of the observer and doesn’t make effects itself.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowability
Man you're frustrating. I'm literally using the definition. Just because you don't know what it means...
No, I'm using the literal definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowability
> I thought Hisenberg meant the more you knew about one property (i.e. the smaller the bound on the position of a particle) the less you knew about the other property.
Yes, this is it, but remove "you knew"... just - property. The more one property is defined, the less the other property is.
The key I'm trying to get across is it doesn't matter what you, the observer know/don't know (i.e. measure). As temp ->abs_zero, momentum becomes more-undefined/fuzzier. Nothing to do with you measuring.
The "other" property is fundamentally undefined (i.e. not knowable, i.e. able to be known).
Maybe we're getting hung up on our shared understanding of "knowable" and I shouldn't have used it, but it is, technically, the correct usage.
As such, if the position uncertainty isn't infinite, the momentum uncertainty is nonzero.
PBS Spacetime has something on it[0].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3jhbui5Cqs
The math sifts out in some hilarious ways. =3
rokkamokka•2mo ago
tucnak•2mo ago