Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

The principle of uncertainty lies in the plane of quantum mechanics, but in order to fully disassemble it, let us turn to the development of physics as a whole. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, perhaps the most famous physicists in the history of mankind. The first at the end of the XVII century formulated the laws of classical mechanics, which obeys all the bodies surrounding us, the planets that are subject to inertia and gravity. The development of the laws of classical mechanics led the scientific world towards the end of the nineteenth century to the view that all the basic laws of nature are already open, and man can explain any phenomenon in the universe.

The theory of relativity of Einstein

As it turned out, at that time only the tip of the iceberg was found, further investigations threw scientists new, completely unbelievable facts. Thus, at the beginning of the XX century it was discovered that the propagation of light (which has a finite velocity of 300,000 km / s) does not obey the laws of Newtonian mechanics. According to the formulas of Isaac Newton, if the body or wave is emitted by a moving source, its speed will be equal to the sum of the source's speed and its own. However, the wave properties of the particles were of a different nature. Numerous experiments with them have demonstrated that in electrodynamics, young at that time, science, an entirely different set of rules works. Already then Albert Einstein, together with the German theoretical physicist Max Planck, introduced his famous theory of relativity, which describes the behavior of photons. However, for us now is not so much its essence as much the fact that at that moment it was revealed the fundamental incompatibility of the two areas of physics, to combine Which, by the way, scientists are trying to this day.

The Birth of Quantum Mechanics

The myth of the all-encompassing classical mechanics has finally destroyed the study of the structure of atoms. Ernest Rutherford's experiments in 1911 demonstrated that the atom contains even smaller particles (called protons, neutrons and electrons). Moreover, they also refused to interact under the laws of Newton. The study of these tiny particles and gave rise to new postulates of quantum mechanics for the learned world. Thus, it is possible that the ultimate understanding of the universe lies not only and not so much in the study of stars, but in the study of the smallest particles that give the most interesting picture of the world at the micro level.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

In the 1920s, quantum mechanics took its first steps, and scientists only
They realized what is going on for us from it. In 1927, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg formulated his famous principle of uncertainty, demonstrating one of the main differences between the microcosm and the familiar surroundings. It consists in the fact that it is impossible to measure simultaneously the velocity and spatial position of a quantum object, simply because during measurement we influence it, because the measurement itself is also performed with the help of quanta. If it is absolutely trite: when evaluating an object in the macrocosm, we see the light reflected from it and on the basis of this we draw conclusions about it. But in quantum physics, already the effect of light photons (or other derivatives of measurement) has an effect on the object. Thus, the uncertainty principle caused understandable difficulties in the study and prediction of the behavior of quantum particles. At the same time, interestingly, it is possible to measure the speed separately or separately the position of the body. But if we measure simultaneously, the higher our speed data, the less we will know about the actual situation, and vice versa.