Uncertainty principle
Principio de incertidumbre
- Date
- 1927 · confidence high
- Place
- Institute for Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Credited to
- Werner Heisenberg
- People
- 👤 Werner Heisenberg1901–1976
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
It is not possible to simultaneously know the position and momentum of a particle with a precision greater than h/4π; indeterminacy is inherent to nature, not to the instruments. It sets the limit of classical description and closes the Copenhagen interpretation together with Bohr's complementarity.
Bohr presented complementarity in Como in September 1927; the October Solvay Congress established the interpretation.
What it led to
- Copenhagen interpretation
- Natural width of spectral lines
- Vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles
- Quantum limits of metrology (LIGO, clocks)
Built on
- Matrix mechanics1925
- Commutation relations
- Discussions with Bohr on the gamma-ray microscope
Made possible
- Scanning tunnelling microscopy (limits)
- Squeezed light states at LIGO