![]() ![]() Historically, the uncertainty principle has been confused with a somewhat similar effect in physics, called the observer effect, which notes that measurements of certain systems cannot be made without affecting the systems. In normal language this means that the act of measurement itself leads to uncertainty in measuring what is measured. The Heisenberg principle “ascribes the uncertainty in the measurable quantities to the jolt-like disturbance triggered by the act of observation itself”. The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle – no need to Google this as I describe it below – also applies to education, learning, teaching and research on these topics. We use it in many of the social sciences as a template or the ‘gold standard’ for how to carry out – or at least to a great extent plan and execute – social science research. Often ascribed to Sir Francis Bacon (the 16 th century natural philosopher and not the 20 th century artist for those of you who are now going to Google® this or who need to disambiguate this for Wikipedia®) though it traces its history back to at least the 7 th century BCE. The overall distribution shown at the bottom can be predicted as the diffraction of waves having the de Broglie wavelength of the electrons (CC BY 4.0 OpenStax).Methods and principles from different scientific domains are, of course, usable in the learning sciences / educational psychology. Each electron arrives at a definite location, which cannot be precisely predicted. ![]() : The building up of the diffraction pattern of electrons scattered from a crystal surface. Repeated measurements will display a statistical distribution of locations that appears wavelike (Figure 1.9.1 But if you set up exactly the same situation and measure it again, you will find the electron in a different location, often far outside any experimental uncertainty in your measurement. ![]() ![]() Experiments show that you will find the electron at some definite location, unlike a wave. What is the position of a particle, such as an electron? Is it at the center of the wave? The answer lies in how you measure the position of an electron. Matter and photons are waves, implying they are spread out over some distance. Heisenberg made the bold proposition that there is a lower limit to this precision making our knowledge of a particle inherently uncertain. Newtonian physics placed no limits on how better procedures and techniques could reduce measurement uncertainty so that it was conceivable that with proper care and accuracy all information could be defined. Until the dawn of quantum mechanics, it was held as a fact that all variables of an object could be known to exact precision simultaneously for a given moment. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a fundamental theory in quantum mechanics that defines why a scientist cannot measure multiple quantum variables simultaneously. In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg described such limitations as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or simply the Uncertainty Principle, stating that it is not possible to measure both the momentum and position of a particle simultaneously. However, this possibility is absent in the quantum world. In classical physics, studying the behavior of a physical system is often a simple task due to the fact that several physical qualities can be measured simultaneously. To understand that sometime you cannot know everything about a quantum system as demonstrated by the Heisenberg uncertainly principle. ![]()
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