[allaboutauto.us]

I am familiar with the explanation of the uncertainty principal, but have not understood what mechanism enforces the principal. Is this simply the limitation of the measuring system or connected to there being no 'true position' in spacetime.

[Katoabralia]

principle.

[g4YthYXx]

principle.

aaah, go back to your English forum, ya surly, sour anti-sanguine.

but thanks for the correction

[Amoniustauns]

surely if you are familiar with the principle then you would understand the mechanism? nothing to do with the measuring equipments limitations.

[Wxrxnhar]

surely if you are familiar with the principle then you would understand the mechanism? nothing to do with the measuring equipments limitations.

The explanation seems a circular one to me.

[ulnanVti]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle


http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/uncer.html

the second is very basic.

[HornyMolly]

surely if you are familiar with the principle then you would understand the mechanism? nothing to do with the measuring equipments limitations.

I wasn't referring to measuring equipment, but the overall process of measurement, by the way.

[CreativeAcrobate]

aaah ok. wave property. nice. thanks Bogsnorkler.

[rorsvierwelia]

that second one is nice and easy to interpret

[23InetrySypekek]

surely if you are familiar with the principle then you would understand the mechanism? nothing to do with the measuring equipments limitations.

hmmm....

I don't think either of your links really add anything much, and I don't think anyone really understands the mechanism.

[adunnyByday]

in what way doesn't the maths explain the "mechanism"?

[unsamiSlini]

in what way doesn't the maths explain the "mechanism"?

In a similar way in which the maths of the path of two billiard balls before and after impact does not explain the mechanism that results in that path.

[Zpxbawtz]

i don't think macroscopic examples are useful when describing quantum effects. but no doubt someone like kjw will explain it all in words i can't understand....

;-)

[Intockatt]

the eigenstate / eigen function comes down to the energetics of systems. At the quantum state, at most temperatures where things are usually observed, the amount of energy as thermal (kT) energy is of the order of the actual individual energy states the small quantum things can exist in.

When you define an observation, you cause the collective of different energy quantum things to enter a set of defined energy states that you wanting to test. This means that when you put the observation and cause the state collapse, you observe the transitions of many things between sets of very defined energies.

The populations of each state are defined by the influence of kT, so that you do not see all electrons or all protons in one single defined state. This inability to define a "one" state gives the uncertainty of the measurement .

In EPR, we have atoms and molecules (and other quantum thingies) with unpaired electrons or just net spin S =/= 0. Without any organisation, they orient randomly and you can not get any information out of the spin states. Place them in magnetic field, and you get spin populations with spin states (for ease we shall call the S=1/2) of s = -1/2 and s = +1/2 and these have defined orientation and quantum energy states in the field. Looking at one electron, we can not be certain as to whether it is in the + or - 1/2 state, as it could be part of either population. The populations of the two quantum states are defined by kT.

We can gain information about the environment of the electrons by causing transitions between the quantum states. These transitions can be either way, and it is the slight population differences between the + and - states that allow the observations as transitions each way are of equal probability.

I hope this mental wandering offers some clarity.

[Arkadiyas]

it should be noted that HUP isn't the same as The Observer Effect.

[Nurfzerne]

I hope this mental wandering offers some clarity.

Yes it did, thank you very much.

[amehoubFomo]

hmmm....

I don't think either of your links really add anything much, and I don't think anyone really understands the mechanism.

Yeah, I also am looking for a proper explanation of the Double Slit Experiment myself.

[sam]

i don't think macroscopic examples are useful when describing quantum effects. but no doubt someone like kjw will explain it all in words i can't understand....

;-)

Whereas we normally think of reality being described in the domain of spacetime (position and time), there are many other domains in which to describe reality. One such domain is momentumenergy (a term I have coined as better parallel to spacetime than "energy-momentum" - [momentum|space][energy|time]).

Consider an audio waveform. One can describe this as a function over the domain of time, or we can perform a frequency analysis and equivalently express the result as a function over the domain of frequency. The function over the frequency domain is equivalent because we can recover the original time-domain waveform from this. Suppose our time-domain waveform is a narrow pulse. Then the corresponding frequency-domain function will be a very broad. Likewise, if the frequency domain function is a narrow pulse, then the corresponding time-domain function will be a very broad. It turns out that multiplying the width of the time-domain pulse with the width of the corresponding frequency-domain pulse will produce a result that is always greater than some minimum value. Therefore, there is an uncertainty relation between time and frequency. One can't determine the exact time and frequency of a pulse (or any waveform). This uncertainty has nothing to do with any measurement of the pulse, but is a mathematical relationship between the time domain and the frequency domain functions.

This uncertainty can be extended to four-dimensional spacetime by noting that wavenumber is the spatial analogue of frequency. Thus, there is the same uncertainty relation between position and wavenumber in each of the three dimensions.

Quantum theory says that energy is frequency multiplied by the Planck constant, and momentum is wavenumber multiplied by the Planck constant. Therefore, there is an uncertainty relation between spacetime and momentumenergy that is the uncertainty relation between spacetime and wavenumberfrequency (another term I've coined) multiplied by the Planck constant.

[tpJKhY8Z]

is this the idea in you second paragraph?

if that doesn't work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Se...lane_waves.gif

[MyOwnStyle]

Your link doesn't work.