What’s the underlying principle on why you can’t know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time? Is there an explanation? I don’t have any knowledge of calculus or the math behind anything so I’m asking here, thanks!
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>What’s the underlying principle on why you can’t know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time? Is there an explanation?
*You* can’t know, because the universe itself doesn’t know.
When you start getting into quantum mechanics, you leave this reality behind and enter a new one. They’re both valid–and this has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt–but at the large scale we’re used to, the quantum effects aren’t visible.
When you get down into *very, very* small scales, the universe looks very different. Particles don’t *have* a well-defined position and momentum, they’re sort of smeared out across a relatively wide range of possible positions and momentums. Those quantities are tied together, but so is that uncertainty. The more you force the universe to define one, the more uncertain you are about the other. This isn’t a measurement issue–it’s literally impossible to precisely define both of those quantities, because doing so would eliminate the uncertainty.
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