GEM Blog 18: The Certainty and Uncertainty Principles
257 views · Published 6 July 2011 · 15:59 · Indexed 18 October 2026
Channel: Doug Sweetser · 2011 · Science & Technology
This is a dramatic reading of "The Certainty and Uncertainty Principles", a blog by the Stand-Up Physicist available as Science20.com. The uncertainty gets lots of press. This is too bad. What should get more attention are the commutators. Those show an exact relationship between position and momentum. When a commutator is equal to 1, that leads to the uncertainty principle. When a commutator is zero, the two variables in question can be determined to whatever accuracy you can afford. It is the product rule of calculus that determines if a pair of operators fall into the former or the latter commutators.
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