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.)
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.)