An Improvement Upon Heisenberg's Uncertainty Theorem
Posted by
Hemos
on from the making-things-more-efficent dept.
Mick Mick writes "This New Scientist
article claims that Heisenberg's uncertainty theorem has been improved upon by replacing an inequality with an equation. It also says that the Schrödinger equation has been derived from this new equation.
Google found the paper here."
Re:Physics fascinates me
by
Jerf
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You want to fully comprehend this? Unless you are a highly motivated mathematical mega-genius (and you can't drop either criterion... merely being a mega-genius won't help if you're not motivated), a good University education is the only way to go. Even if you are a highly motivated mathematical mega-genius, you'll still want to use the actual textbooks you'd use in a Uni course series. . . be prepared to read more then just a couple of books, and be prepared to learn a hell of a lot of math.
And if math isn't easy for you (and I mean math, not namby-pamby arithematic, I mean real math, like topology and geometry and all forms of calculus), and you aren't truly seriously motivated to spend years on this, even the Uni won't be enough; most people drop out of the serious Physics courses!
I can't give you a reading list; all I can say is if anyone else gives you one, and you can understand the books past the third chapter (assuming you know little/nothing about the subject, which I'm inferring from not trusting Uni educations right where they are the absolute strongest (hard sciences)), you're getting a "Slashdot" understanding, i.e., absolute crap. This isn't really a reading list problem; more of a reading bookshelf thing.
Quantum mechanics drives PhDs nuts; you probably aren't going to just "pick it up". And I say this as a guy who "picks things up" pretty routinely (not just computer stuff). You have to know your limits, and if you're asking, this is extremely highly likely this is beyond yours. (And if you have trouble understanding that sentence literally, don't even bother starting... statistically, there's a chance I'm wrong but I wouldn't bet, well, anything on that remote chance.)
Now, if you don't mind being a poser, as I am, then there are lots of great choices; the best thing to do is hike on down to a good physical bookstore, peruse the science shelves, and look for something that looks to be at your level, or better, slightly above. But don't think for a second you're getting anything more then the cliff notes of the cliff notes of a summary of quantum physics. (And highly opinionated ones, too; when physicist run out of math to talk about in popular-interest books, they tend to start shooting their mouths off and irresponsibly speculating wildly about cosmology. It makes good copy, but frankly, they're only slightly better equipped to speculate about the nature of the universe then you are; if anything, they get to be even more wildly wrong. You gotta seperate the physicist's wanking from the real facts.)
intellectual fraud
by
iskander
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
[To the author of the post to which I am replying: please, don't take this as an attack on you.]
The "Heisenburg [sic] uncertainty prinicple [sic]" is not a misconception arising from inexact experimental tools; it has nothing to do with the quality of experimental means. The inequality that some (most?) physicists like to call the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is not a principle at all but a sort of litmus test for the applicability of classical models to systems exhibiting so-called quantum behavior; that is, the Heisenberg inequality can be used as a way to determine whether a given so-called classical model {still | no-longer} constitutes an accurate description of the behavior of the system in question. I suppose I could agree with someone saying that the Heisenberg inequality was a "feature" of quantum-mechanical models much more readily than I could agree with someone claiming that it was a principle. (You might look up "principle" in the dictionary to see what I mean.)
There's no "growing school of thought" to speak of because Physics is not a belief system, and I don't even think that a significant change in the thinking of the average physicist is currently taking place. There are many practicing physicists who haven't the integrity to admit (to others or to themselves) that they are a fraud and who propagate their misunderstanding to their students and to the public through their lectures and their publications -- and it may well be that attrition and budget cuts are weeding these posers out. Evidently, however, we've still a long way to go: the closing paragraph of the scholarly paper referenced in the story demonstrates how Ye Olde Rhetorick can survive even the strongest refutation. I can think of two reasons why people will continue to "believe in" the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and other such historically justified nonsense:
In order to get ahead, a scientist (like everyone else, I suppose) may choose to say what his peers (especially those who hold power) already believe, even when he knows better.
Very often, those who discover evidence refuting a given proposition are too firmly in its grip to realize the significance (or even the meaning) of their finding, and sometimes even misinterpret it so as to corroborate their erroneous belief.
Fear not for the fate of science, though: it is quite possible to use the knowledge framework developed by Real Scientists (amongst whom I would include Real Mathematicians) to make Real Discoveries and devise Real Technology -- even in the absence of Real Understanding. (I am confident that the reader can provide his own examples.:-> ) And, in a very real way, we depend on these contributions to build the venerable edifice of science.
Slashdot Mirror
You want to fully comprehend this? Unless you are a highly motivated mathematical mega-genius (and you can't drop either criterion... merely being a mega-genius won't help if you're not motivated), a good University education is the only way to go. Even if you are a highly motivated mathematical mega-genius, you'll still want to use the actual textbooks you'd use in a Uni course series. . . be prepared to read more then just a couple of books, and be prepared to learn a hell of a lot of math.
And if math isn't easy for you (and I mean math, not namby-pamby arithematic, I mean real math, like topology and geometry and all forms of calculus), and you aren't truly seriously motivated to spend years on this, even the Uni won't be enough; most people drop out of the serious Physics courses!
I can't give you a reading list; all I can say is if anyone else gives you one, and you can understand the books past the third chapter (assuming you know little/nothing about the subject, which I'm inferring from not trusting Uni educations right where they are the absolute strongest (hard sciences)), you're getting a "Slashdot" understanding, i.e., absolute crap. This isn't really a reading list problem; more of a reading bookshelf thing.
Quantum mechanics drives PhDs nuts; you probably aren't going to just "pick it up". And I say this as a guy who "picks things up" pretty routinely (not just computer stuff). You have to know your limits, and if you're asking, this is extremely highly likely this is beyond yours. (And if you have trouble understanding that sentence literally, don't even bother starting... statistically, there's a chance I'm wrong but I wouldn't bet, well, anything on that remote chance.)
Now, if you don't mind being a poser, as I am, then there are lots of great choices; the best thing to do is hike on down to a good physical bookstore, peruse the science shelves, and look for something that looks to be at your level, or better, slightly above. But don't think for a second you're getting anything more then the cliff notes of the cliff notes of a summary of quantum physics. (And highly opinionated ones, too; when physicist run out of math to talk about in popular-interest books, they tend to start shooting their mouths off and irresponsibly speculating wildly about cosmology. It makes good copy, but frankly, they're only slightly better equipped to speculate about the nature of the universe then you are; if anything, they get to be even more wildly wrong. You gotta seperate the physicist's wanking from the real facts.)
[To the author of the post to which I am replying: please, don't take this as an attack on you.]
The "Heisenburg [sic] uncertainty prinicple [sic]" is not a misconception arising from inexact experimental tools; it has nothing to do with the quality of experimental means. The inequality that some (most?) physicists like to call the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is not a principle at all but a sort of litmus test for the applicability of classical models to systems exhibiting so-called quantum behavior; that is, the Heisenberg inequality can be used as a way to determine whether a given so-called classical model {still | no-longer} constitutes an accurate description of the behavior of the system in question. I suppose I could agree with someone saying that the Heisenberg inequality was a "feature" of quantum-mechanical models much more readily than I could agree with someone claiming that it was a principle. (You might look up "principle" in the dictionary to see what I mean.)
There's no "growing school of thought" to speak of because Physics is not a belief system, and I don't even think that a significant change in the thinking of the average physicist is currently taking place. There are many practicing physicists who haven't the integrity to admit (to others or to themselves) that they are a fraud and who propagate their misunderstanding to their students and to the public through their lectures and their publications -- and it may well be that attrition and budget cuts are weeding these posers out. Evidently, however, we've still a long way to go: the closing paragraph of the scholarly paper referenced in the story demonstrates how Ye Olde Rhetorick can survive even the strongest refutation. I can think of two reasons why people will continue to "believe in" the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and other such historically justified nonsense:
Fear not for the fate of science, though: it is quite possible to use the knowledge framework developed by Real Scientists (amongst whom I would include Real Mathematicians) to make Real Discoveries and devise Real Technology -- even in the absence of Real Understanding. (I am confident that the reader can provide his own examples. :-> ) And, in a very real way, we depend on these contributions to build the venerable edifice of science.