Friday, January 6, 2012

Uncertainty principle.?

The uncertainty principle is all about pairs of properties of a particle called conjugate variables. If you multiply the uncertainty of two conjugate variables together you get Planck's constant h; 6.67E-34 joule seconds. For instance, position and momentum are conjugate variables. The more accurately you determine one, the less you know about the other. Another way of stating this is that to find the position of, say, an electron you need to bounce another particle, like a photon, off it, and by doing so you've given it a kick which increases the uncertainty of its momentum. The more accurately you want to know its position, the shorter the wavelength of the photon and the more energetic the collision. Alternatively, to measure its momentum accurately you need to measure its velocity, say by detecting its electric field as it pes two gates, and by detecting its field you have to subject it to another electric field, which deflects it.

No comments:

Post a Comment