the more you measure one thing the less you know about another ....
is it a result of our measuring limitations to which we can measure subatomic particles or is it a result of the nature of reality at the subatomic level?
so does the HUP exist because we have to hit subatomic particles with photons to measure them, which in turn causes disruption to their paths or does the HUP exist because electrons are in 1 place 2 places and no places all at once? or does the HUP exist because of both these facts?
is it a result of our measuring limitations to which we can measure subatomic particles or is it a result of the nature of reality at the subatomic level?
so does the HUP exist because we have to hit subatomic particles with photons to measure them, which in turn causes disruption to their paths or does the HUP exist because electrons are in 1 place 2 places and no places all at once? or does the HUP exist because of both these facts?
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Actually, the HUP is a fundamental property of nature at the quantum level. What Heisenberg described (and what you use as the example in your question) is simply the result of this property.
For example, if we could confine one electron to a plane of thickness zero, then that electron would be everywhere on that plane, simultaneously. To word it differently, the energy of the electron, relative to the other 2 dimensions, would be unbounded (but that is OK as the vectorial product of the energy in all three dimensions includes a factor of zero, then we have a Dirac function, where an infinity multiplies a zero, to give some fixed number).
It gets "more weird". In the "normal" world we experience, you can measure distance between objects. The closer together you move these objects, the smaller the distance gets.
Once you get within the uncertainty limits, though, this rule cannot apply (otherwise, it would contradict the HUP). Thus, within very small spaces (smaller than the Planck size) metrics are very different. The Pithagorean theorm becomes useless, as the distance between two objects withing the same volume smaller than a Planck size, may increase (or decrease or stay the same, you are not allowed to know) as the objects move closer.
The rule extends to "particles" who are themselves "smaller" than their own HUP-size. That is why we can never pinpoint the exact position of an electron... and the electron behaves as it it knows that we can't. The double-slit experiment shows that a single electron, having to choose between two slits that are closer together than its De Broglie wavelength (which is still bigger than the HUP uncertainty distance) will behave as if it had gone through both slits... simultaneously.
For example, if we could confine one electron to a plane of thickness zero, then that electron would be everywhere on that plane, simultaneously. To word it differently, the energy of the electron, relative to the other 2 dimensions, would be unbounded (but that is OK as the vectorial product of the energy in all three dimensions includes a factor of zero, then we have a Dirac function, where an infinity multiplies a zero, to give some fixed number).
It gets "more weird". In the "normal" world we experience, you can measure distance between objects. The closer together you move these objects, the smaller the distance gets.
Once you get within the uncertainty limits, though, this rule cannot apply (otherwise, it would contradict the HUP). Thus, within very small spaces (smaller than the Planck size) metrics are very different. The Pithagorean theorm becomes useless, as the distance between two objects withing the same volume smaller than a Planck size, may increase (or decrease or stay the same, you are not allowed to know) as the objects move closer.
The rule extends to "particles" who are themselves "smaller" than their own HUP-size. That is why we can never pinpoint the exact position of an electron... and the electron behaves as it it knows that we can't. The double-slit experiment shows that a single electron, having to choose between two slits that are closer together than its De Broglie wavelength (which is still bigger than the HUP uncertainty distance) will behave as if it had gone through both slits... simultaneously.
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