An Improvement Upon Heisenberg's Uncertainty Theorem

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."

Comments

A reading list [Re:Physics fascinates me]

[skwang]

Okay, you want a reading list. I have one for you.

First brush up on your classical mechanics, you will need to study Lagragians and the Hamitonian formulation as they are both very important for the formation of Quantum Mechanics. Lets see, you could try:

• Marion and Thorton, Classical Dynamics, Saunders College Publ., Philadelphia, 1995.
• Goldstein, Classical Mechanics 2nd ed. , Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1980.

For a good mathematical methods reference read:

• Arfkin and Weber, Mathematical Methods for Physicists,Harcourt / Academic Press, 2000.

You want to rigorously learn all of Electricity and Magentism; there is only one source:

• Jackson, J.D., Classical Electrodynamics 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

Now you have to start on Quantum Mechanics. There are many different books you could try; here are some of them:

• Sakurai, Modern Quantum Mechanics
• Dirac, Principles of Quantum Mechanics
• Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu and Laloe, Quantum Mechanics
• Merzbacher, Quantum Mechanics

Now that you have learned Quantum Machanics you can move onto some field theory:

• Riazzudin & Fayazzudin, A Modern Introduction to Particle Theory, World Scientific.
• Mohapatra, Unification and Supersymmetry, Springer Veriag.
• Marshak, Conceptual Foundations of Particle Physics, World Scientific.

At this point you may want to deviate slightly and read some books on relativity and cosmology

• Misner, Wheeler and Thorne, Gravitation,W H Freeman & Co, 1973.
• Peebles, Principles of Physical Cosmology,Princeton Univ Press, 1993.

When I started college, I chose physics because I liked it. I soon realized that the physics you learn at a univeristy is not the physics a physicists does. Instead, everything you learn as an undergraduate classes are tools. These tools are to be used in graduate school as a foundation for more complex concepts.

It's been four years and I am about to go off to grad school to study elementry particle physics (experimental). I don't claim to have read any of the books above, but I hope it might show you that if you want to "*fully* comprehend stuff like particle physics, quantum phenomena, etc." it is not easy. Most popular science books you will find on a bookshelf do not contain much substance. Many are good reads. Brian Green's Elegant Universe and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History are good examples that are constantly recommended here on slashdot. But if you really (and I mean really) want to learn physics, you can do one of two things:

1. Read all the books above while doing most if not all the problems.
2. Spend a good amount of time (most people spend four undergraduate years) learning the "tools of the trade" and then spend five to six years in graduate studies, researching a single topic.

My purpose of this post is not to be harsh, but realistic. I am glad you are fasinated with physics. My fasination led me to the point where I want to spend years in school studying it. But I think many people don't realize that the subject is really difficult, and that it takes years of university education to even begin to understand it.