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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Step one to understanding quantum mechanics is accepting that all particles also behave as waves. This is probably the hardest step because it’s kind of wild.
What that means can be a bit hard to understand, but the crucial part here is that these waves (or wave packets) don’t have a specific location.
For instance, look at [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Gaussian_wave_packet.svg/1280px-Gaussian_wave_packet.svg.png) wave packet. This is our electron. Where *exactly* is this electron? Is it the middle of the wave packet? The left side? The right side? It doesn’t have a specific location. We just know it’s vaguely in the area of the wave packet. It’s not so much that our knowledge is limited, but that the whole region is ‘electron’, yet the electron doesn’t actually occupy all of that space.
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