Is it because at absolute zero you would know with certainty the momentum and the position of the particle? Or is there another reason? Would we ever be able to overcome the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
In: Physics
Not an expert but… cooling doesn’t require observation so Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle does not apply. I think the problem is likely that as you approach the boundary, it becomes exponentially harder to make gains. There are many functions in nature that are exponential. Air resistance, for example. As you go faster the force of air resistance grows exponentially. If you want to make a passenger car go 10 mph faster, it’s not a big deal. Air resistance is barely a factor. But if you want to make a fighter jet go 10 mph faster, it is a much bigger engineering problem. In this case, when cooling to absolute zero, you have to remove every last bit of energy from the system. I expect that is an exponentially more challenging problem the closer you get.
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