Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that you can't measure certain paired observable values of single elementary particles. For instance, position and momentum cannot both be known at the same time for electrons and other indivisible atomic particles. Quantum mechanics is largely based upon this idea.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is not the observer effect described by Schroedinger, in which subatomic objects are both waves and particles until direct observation, though the two are often confused.
Heisenberg demonstrated that with any given particle, even with an infinitely precise instrument, one cannot accurately determine both the position and momentum of a particle. This is the boundary of measurement for all instruments we know or can conceive of today.
Though this does not affect anything at the macroparticle and greater level, it is intimiately involved with the particle-wave effect detailed above. The uncertainty principle can be used in cases where neither the wave model nor the particle model is appropriate to a particle. Instead, uncertainty reigns over that object's existence. In a very real way, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle points out the necessity for measuring time as well as other functions of a particle; for instance, a wavelength cannot be measured at a specified time because it is in part a function of time.
Web Resources On Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Hyperphysics: The Uncertainty Principle
Book Resources On Heisenberg Uncertainty PrincipleHeisenberg's Uncertainties and the Probabilistic Interpretation of Wave Mechanics by Louis de Broglie et al
Sixty-Two Years of Uncertainty : Historical Philosophical, and Physical Enquiries into the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by Arthur I. Miller (Editor)
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