If the electron is indeed able to change location without cause or reason... that really is bizarre.
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I suggest you get a good popular science book, like "The Elegant Universe" or "The Cosmic Landscape" and read up on the HUP. You have a misconception as to what it is.
The HUP applies to all bodies, but it's most obvious when applied to sub atomic particles...aka, quanta. It says we cannot precisely and concurrently measure both location and momentum, or energy and time for any SAP. In math talk, the HUP looks like dX dP >= h-bar/2 for the location/momentum version.
dX and dP are standard deviations, which are measures of uncertainty. The greater the value, the greater the uncertainty. dX = 0 means we precisely and exactly know the location for example. But you see, the HUP says we can't have dX = 0 because dX dP >= h-bar/2 > 0. So as dX --> 0 dP --> infinity to compensate and keep the value at >= h-bar/2.
Now, get this, the HUP has nothing to do with quantum jitters, which is what you are getting at with your electron I believe. Quanta, all of them, have the jitters. They spontaneously jerk about in both space and time. But we have no way of knowing where or when they will show up next. And in fact they don't travel from point A to point B by crossing space like you and I would. They sort of pop out of one space-time and back into another space-time.
And as they are continually doing that, they form a probability density cloud around where they are most likely to be found. That cloud is called the wave function. Each electron has its own wave function, which is why we see wave-like patterns in the split slit experiment even though we release one electron at a time through the slits. All other quanta have their wave functions as well; that includes massless ones like photons.
Although the Higgs Boson, at a gigantic 126 GeV mass equivalent, is the biggest of all the bosons, it, too, jitters about. So its discovery only serves to confirm the HUP in that this newest of bosons is also jittery.
Finally, you are right..."bizarre" is the word that comes to mind re quantum mechanics. But the HUP is to my mind the least of all the bizarre characteristics of quanta.
The HUP applies to all bodies, but it's most obvious when applied to sub atomic particles...aka, quanta. It says we cannot precisely and concurrently measure both location and momentum, or energy and time for any SAP. In math talk, the HUP looks like dX dP >= h-bar/2 for the location/momentum version.
dX and dP are standard deviations, which are measures of uncertainty. The greater the value, the greater the uncertainty. dX = 0 means we precisely and exactly know the location for example. But you see, the HUP says we can't have dX = 0 because dX dP >= h-bar/2 > 0. So as dX --> 0 dP --> infinity to compensate and keep the value at >= h-bar/2.
Now, get this, the HUP has nothing to do with quantum jitters, which is what you are getting at with your electron I believe. Quanta, all of them, have the jitters. They spontaneously jerk about in both space and time. But we have no way of knowing where or when they will show up next. And in fact they don't travel from point A to point B by crossing space like you and I would. They sort of pop out of one space-time and back into another space-time.
And as they are continually doing that, they form a probability density cloud around where they are most likely to be found. That cloud is called the wave function. Each electron has its own wave function, which is why we see wave-like patterns in the split slit experiment even though we release one electron at a time through the slits. All other quanta have their wave functions as well; that includes massless ones like photons.
Although the Higgs Boson, at a gigantic 126 GeV mass equivalent, is the biggest of all the bosons, it, too, jitters about. So its discovery only serves to confirm the HUP in that this newest of bosons is also jittery.
Finally, you are right..."bizarre" is the word that comes to mind re quantum mechanics. But the HUP is to my mind the least of all the bizarre characteristics of quanta.
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I cannot understand how they are related.
Heisenbergs principle is that we cannot KNOW both the position and the momentum of any object at any time to any arbitrary precision.
It says nothing about whether the particle HAS a precise position that we can't know.
Heisenbergs principle is that we cannot KNOW both the position and the momentum of any object at any time to any arbitrary precision.
It says nothing about whether the particle HAS a precise position that we can't know.
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No, it couldn't. There is no relation between the existence of the Higgs boson and the violation of the uncertainty principle.