Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Why, exactly, can you not know both the velocity and position of a particle?
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The big problem is that we cannot detect a thing unless we interact with it. If there is no interaction, you cannot know it is there. We only know it is there by information we get from “touching” it (even if that “touching” uses light).
The problem is, of course, that when dealing with very small objects, the seemingly tiny energy of light is big in terms of the very tiny object. The following is a simplified way of understanding the issue.
The precision we can get in terms of the location requires very short wavelength light (the precision concerning location decreases as wavelength increases). That light is the most energetic. So, we can tell where the object is, but only if we hit it with energetic light, which moves the object and changes its direction and velocity (the energy changes its movement).
To avoid changing the movement much, we have to use low energy (large wavelength) light, but we can’t “see” small details with large wavelengths.
So, you can either see where the thing is, very well, but change its movement a lot (and not in a predictable way) OR you can have a big zone of “the thing is somewhere in there” but have little to no impact on its motion. Choice is yours.
This problem only exists on a very fine scale, things in the size range of the wavelength of light, and thus things with little to no mass.
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