Eli5 Why can’t we “know” the speed and position of an electron simultaneously? Why can we only measure one of these properties at a time?

Question

This always confuses me and I’m not sure how it works. Please explain…

In: 252

Answer 1

It’s because electrons, like other really small things, are “fuzzy”. In other words they exist in a general area, sort of like a cloud.

You can point to a cloud and say “there it is! It’s in that cloud-shaped area!” But if I ask you to tell me how fast it’s moving, you’d say “I can’t tell you exactly because different parts of the cloud are moving at different speeds”.