🚀 go-pugleaf

Most of what i've read so far on this page has, I'm sorry to say, been
nonsense. My undergraduate thesis this year is on the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle and i've uncovered a lot of interesting data on the subject which
disagrees strongly with many of the osts on this page. Essentially the
principle which Heisenberg postulated is incorrect. Heisenbergs
interpretation of the well known uncertainty relation was that it defined
the accuracy to which simultaneous measurements of position and momentum
could be made. This was incorrect; clearly (as shown by Jon Von Neumann)
simultaneous measurements of momentum and position is impossible in the
first place. Therefore there is no limitng accuracy for such impossible
measurements.

The uncertainty principle is a consequence of two things: 1 the
probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics; 2: the representation of all
physical observables in QM with selfadjoint operators (see Robertson's
indeterminacy principle). When one makes a measrument of a property of a
quantum system one cannot absolutely predict the outcome of the meaurement
i.e. what measured value will appear on the readout of our apparatus. The
only meaningful quantity in such situations is the probbility of obtaining a
particular value e.g 50% chance of getting position x=2, 37% of getting x=9,
13% of getting x=-2. When a large number of experiments are carried out on a
quantm system we find a spread in the measured values. This spread
(statistical variance given via the root-mean-square deviation) corresponds
to the delta-x & delta-p values in Heisenberg's relaion.

Heisenberg's uncertainy principle can be proven mathematically using
Robertson's indeterminacy principle. Heisenberg's interpretation, called the
"Ontic reading" of the relation is actually incorrect and, within the strict
mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, meaningless. It is not
suprising that so many people have stated this interpretation in this
newsgroup as it is a VERY common mistake (Wigner, Rayski & Rayski etc make
the same mistake).

I appreciate that this wan't really a laymans description, but it may be of
interest to some theoretical physicists out there.

Have Fun
Bob