25 MAY 2015 by ideonexus

 Kai Krause: The Uncertainty Principle

Heisenberg’s idea had quickly been dubbed Unschärferelation, which transliterates to “unsharpness relationship,” but as there is really no such term in English ('blurred', 'fuzzy', 'vague' or 'ambiguous' have all been tried), the translation ended up as "the Uncertainty Principle"—when he had not used either term at all (some point to Eddington). And what followed is really quite close to the analogy as well: rather than stating that either position or momentum are "as yet undetermined", it b...
Folksonomies: physics semantics
Folksonomies: physics semantics
  1  notes
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Do Not Extrapolate Macro-Philosophy from Quantum Phenomena

Many scientists have tried to make determinism and complementarity the basis of conclusions that seem to me weak and dangerous; for instance, they have used Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to bolster up human free will, though his principle, which applies exclusively to the behavior of electrons and is the direct result of microphysical measurement techniques, has nothing to do with human freedom of choice. It is far safer and wiser that the physicist remain on the solid ground of theoreti...
Folksonomies: philosophy micro macro quantum
Folksonomies: philosophy micro macro quantum
  1  notes

People try to infer that the uncertainty principle means we have free will, but the principle only applies to the behavior of electrons.