The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle Explained Intuitively
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An intuitive explanation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics.
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*Quantum Physics Series:
• Quantum Physics
Sources
The Blackhole Wars - Leonard Susskind
Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum - Leonard Susskind
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Music
www.epidemicsound.com/ - Věda a technologie
Heisenberg, Schrodinger and Ohm are in a car
They get pulled over. Heisenberg is driving and the cop asks him "Do you know how fast you were going?"
"No, but I know exactly where I am" Heisenberg replies.
The cop says "You were doing 55 in a 35." Heisenberg throws up his hands and shouts "Great! Now I'm lost!"
The cop thinks this is suspicious and orders him to pop open the trunk. He checks it out and says "Do you know you have a dead cat back here?"
"We do now, asshole!" shouts Schrodinger.
The cop moves to arrest them. Ohm resists.
Now the real question: WHO is the cop?
Hints:
The police car is a Toyota Corolla.
The other car is a Tesla Roadster.
haha this was lame but it made me laugh
Hahaha! That's simply too good!!!
David Ruiz, Ohm resists.... hmmm Ohm is a commie, I phone McCarthy immediately
The cartoon faces were extra funny and adorable this video. They made me laugh a couple of times. Well done.
This was a fantastic explainer Jade! The visuals we're on point!
@Squishy Chilli he is into anything that involves learning 😂
I see what you did there
Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and today we have this. The relationship between the days is expressed by an equation involving Walking the Planck’s Constant.
J J right
This video repeats the incredibly common confusion between the measurement problem and the uncertainty principle. They are emphatically NOT the same thing!
The measurement problem is about the fact that you can't measure something without interfering with it. Very simple and easy to understand. The uncertainty principle is about the fact that conjugate variables literally can't both exist as defined quantities at the same time. It's not that we can't accurately measure the momentum of a confined particle, it's that there literally isn't a proper momentum to measure, even in principle. This is much harder to justify and understand but is a very well understood and universally accepted facet of quantum theory. This video gets a little closer to the point toward the end, but doesn't really nail it, and spends at least the first two thirds talking about the wrong topic.
If you're not trained in physics, and often even if you are, this is a very easy mistake to make. Be highly suspicious whenever you see a video or article about the uncertainty principle, even by a usually high quality channel like this, and honestly quite often even coming from an academic. There have been a few occasions in the past when I've received messages from people saying things along the lines of "this video finally made the uncertainty principle click!" Twice from people with actual master's degrees in mathematics and physics. The link they provided made exactly this mistake. Point is, don't feel bad. Even the experts frequently confuse these two (sort of, loosely) related but very different phenomena.
I totally agree with Colin Broderick. I was about to write something similar. The uncertainty principle is not about our incapacity to measure accurately, but about the fact that the product : position time momentum (or the product of two other conjugate quantities) is not precise, it is fuzzy in nature independently of human measurements.
I actually came back to this video because I originally thought it was a good example of the Uncertainty Principle and then realized it is confused with measurement problems.
Thank you.
I agree with Colin
Nokay, but what is meant by uncertainty in position or uncertainty in momentum? How do you assign a number to uncertainty (use an interval maybe)? I have no idea.
It is amazing how you uncomplicated your videos are...
You take a complex and through the use of those brilliant animations and those simplified explanations...
God, I would love to have you as my Physics teacher!!!
If you understand something you can explain it. The evidence is still complicated. Learning math can be difficult because we have to thicken the connection between the frontal cortex & parietal lobe.
I doubt I'd learn anything. I'd be daydreaming about my beautiful teacher....
I can't concentrate because she's beautiful. I'm just happy being ... 😲
..and that's where my understanding end. Everything else is blah blaaaah, uh? Blah.
Her explanation of superposition was difficult to understand.
Only females can do that.
Isn't the uncertainty in position and momentum an intrinsic property of the particles wave function and not relying on a measurement through a photon?
Those variables are undefined before mesuare it. It isn't that you are not good enough to mesuare both of them at the same time, it's that mesuare one variable make you unknow more about the oder variable
Johann 0604
Yes it is. In fact, you can know the exact momentum probability distribution. And if you do, you can calculate the exact position probability distribution. Those are just Fourier transforms of each other, like you saw in the video.
They are just like water waves:
If you ask, how high is the wave? Well that depends on which of the waves you measure, because there are many waves running through each other. But when there is only one wave hight possible, well then asking: 'Where is the wave?' makes no sense, cause it's everywhere as high.
A "wavefunction" is just how we conceptualize and describe our knowledge of the state of a particle (or set of particles, with a bit more work). This knowledge has built into it a prediction of what would happen when we made a measurement, so it's really the same thing. It's not possible to separate a wavefunction from the notion of measurement because the wavefunction is only given _meaning_ because of how it describes measurement.
That's correct. This video makes the incredibly common mistake of mixing up or conflating the uncertainty principle and the measurement problem. They are not the same thing, but this is unfortunately an unbelievably common mistake, even from usually high quality sources like this one.
This is wrong. The measurement problem and the uncertainty principle are almost completely unrelated and are most definitely NOT the same thing. The definition of a wave function has literally nothing whatsoever to do with measurement.
"Next time you think you can have your cake and eat it too, you probably can't."
-Jade the motivational speaker, 2018
😎
Isn't there some quantum state a cake could be in that would allow it to be in my mouth as well as in my hands?
That's why I only eat other's cake.
So I can eat the cake without having it? I hope this applies to money too
@@upandatom Thank You Jade, for your Heinsenberg Uncertainty Principle Intuition Conjugate Variables ie Velocity-Momentum explained here >> Your point seems to be MORE observation time of Mildred going to the store every Sunday implies more certainty that frequency=Once a week ; however you would have to observe Mildred over Infinite time to be 100% certain of Frequency ..
.. ergo my conclusion is ALL Statistics is Bayesian Statistics which is simply updating our Bayesian-Prior assumptions ie Machine Learning ;
Btw maybe say hi to Andrew Ng/Machine Learning Dept. there at Stanford about this ?
I also note an Information Theory subtlety here, it may be that per Nyquist sampling theory we simply need to increase the Data Sampling Frequency Rate and include Mildred's Cat's wave function to produce more accurate predictions sooner/faster for a *CLOSED* system ..
Also I've been researching where we ran off the track and I think it's the 1927 Solvay conference with Einstein-De Broglie where we derailed by ignoring "God does not play with dice" Einsteins statement
.. LOL did I just say that out loud in public !!?
Ok wow so Jade now I'M on the gradient descent of the Heisenberg-Conjugate-Variable of (greater math weather prediction prowess-fewer friends) with you and Jabril so will at least YOU be my friend LOL 😂 ..
+UpandAtom +Jade +Jabril
Note I'm a shy kitten (aka a De Broglie scaredy cat) and it takes up almost all of my Feynman swagger just to comment here 😊 , so to encourage more maybe you or Jabril can start with a like and a comment here to this comment ?
I think for the 1st time I have understood clean and clearly the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. I badly needed this kind of teachers during my college days! But better late than never!! Thank you for this video. I will be waiting for more ☺️
This is by far the best and most concise and clear explanaition of the uncertainty principle I've ever heard! And I've spent a loooot of time in college.
Thank you very much Jade!
you're welcome v4 cat!
It's wrong. This video confuses the uncertainty principle with the measurement problem, which is not the same thing and they have very little to do with each other.
@@ColinBroderickMaths No, it's not wrong. At first she explains it the way that Heisenberg himself theorized it (the observer effect). But later in the video she explains the actual wave mechanics behind it (the actual uncertainty principle). It's just delivered in 2 parts.
This is also the best explanation I found so far.
this is a wrong explanation
So you're saying quantum mechanics does not require hippie magic? I'm tossing out my rhinestone glasses.
I'm so glad your channel exists! Your videos are amazing, keep it up :)
Maybe the reason fewer people came to your party wasn't because of too much study, but because you spent a year in a bush watching an elderly lady.
I'm sure Mildred would come to your birthday party though! (As long as it's not on a Sunday)
you make physics entertaining and fun love it
I am so happy that I found this channel. The animations and the simple ways that you explain these topics is awesome. Thank you!
You are an absolutely amazing teacher and I’m so grateful for your videos. You make everything seem so easy. Thank you!
Intuition is so important when learning difficult concepts. Thanks for sharing this video. I hope you make more videos about how to intuitively understand more complex areas of physics.
Damn those animations are smooth af
I really like your videos. coming from a more abstract understanding of the uncertainty principle using fourier transforms, it's nice to see some more intuitive examples.
Your animations are really great, and I love the details such as in the bush part.
Wait a moment, so when I'll have no birthday party, i should get, like, the ultimate grades!
that's it!
So glad I decided to check out your channel from physics girl. I looooove your style!!!
I've been working on this stuff for years, and I only discovered this chan a few weeks ago. The CZcams suggestion bot isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Another great one! I really appreciate the work you do on your videos 👍🏽
Undoubtedly the best video of Heisenberg principle on CZcams I found so far. I am more than amazed. Great work!!
Very often people decry the first "disturbance analysis" of the uncertainty principle, suggesting that the second point of view (which involves the Fourier transform) is the better one. I like that you presented both in equal footing, because they really are in equal footing: a wavefunction is nothing but a mathematical representation of a particle's state that has built into it that kind of disturbance analysis. The fact that position and momentum are conjugate variables (that is, that they Fourier transform into each other) wouldn't make any sense _unless_ we knew that position measurements disturb momentum measurements and vice versa.
Both intuitions carry a risk though, and that is the risk of imagining that a quantum particle is just like a classical particle or just like a classical wave. Really it is neither, and we know that any naive classical hidden variables model (like one suggested by either picture) wouldn't work.
Overall this is a very nice video! I would just like to leave a couple small corrections about the slide around the 7 and a half minute mark:
1. Energy and time are not exactly complementary properties because there is no observable (no Hermitian operator) corresponding to measurements of time. In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, time is just a parameter. The so-called "energy-time uncertainty relation" is actually a bit subtler than most quantum mechanical uncertainty relations. John Baez has an excellent discussion on the subject at math(dot)ucr(dot)edu/home/baez/uncertainty.html.
2. Entanglement and coherence are not canonically conjugate either, for the reason that neither is really a well-defined observable. We say "entanglement" and we say "coherence" mostly like adjectives, meant to describe a given physical preparation rather than be actual quantum mechanical observables. For a given system it may be possible to define observables which correspond to intuitive ideas of "entanglement" and "coherence", and those observables may be conjugate. However, depending on how you define the terms and how you think about the system in detail, you may find that an opposite idea is true! See e.g. 1502.05876. All in all, I think the terms are just too vague to be assigned a precise conjugacy relation.
Vacuum Diagrams, thank you for (what seems to me) a significant contribution to the discussion. I'm relieved to learn from you that the "disturbance" intuition is just as correct as the Fourier-style explanation. Back at Berkeley, almost 50 years ago, I remember concocting an intuitive explanation for myself which was practically identical to the one Up and Atom described here using a basketball and tennis ball. My thought experiment involved rolling marbles of lower mass to report back on the position of heavier marbles. Later I read that was not a good way to explain the uncertainty principle. Now you say my line of thought was not too bad after all. Thanks!
You make a good point, only problem is, I don't understand it.
I understood the video though! ;)
@@RalphDratman oh but, if your analogy is in a Newtonian world, as suggested, knowing the start and end conditions (position, angle, velocity) of the cue ball allows you to back calculate the position of the target ball at impact, the momentum imparted to it and it's direction and speed of travel thereafter. Assuming you know it's mass. So the analogy presented here seems to assume that I wouldn't know how do that. But I do for macro scale Newtonian behaviour. So it's not an example of the uncertainty principle.
The only uncertainty I am left with is, if photons have eyes, how do they see? A true conundrum!
Mario G. Cardiel
there is no such thing as a photon!
@@johnnym6700 they are to 100% real
@@gamerstar1823 Imaginary elementary particle! in other words made up.
Even better is to imagine you are traveling along with a photon (which normally move at velocity c in a vacuum). Then time does not pass, meaning that you are everywhere at once.
@@david203 Photons don't exist neither does c. All imaginary fabricated science fiction. (c is most likely zero - images don't travel in space - you see everything in real time)
Okay, so I've only just now discovered your channel and I just love you. Gonna have to binge watch your videos to catch up. So amazing to see girls not only managing to be both smart AND gorgeous, but also to be able to share that information to others in a very accessible way, free from convolution and thereby introducing more minds to science and inspiring people and evoking the curiosity that resides within us all. Not everyone is able to do that so naturally, and then look damn well good while doing it too! You miss, have my respect and one more subscriber x
This video is so far the BEST video on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and your way of explaining things is just amazing. It got me hooked! Thank you very much!!
Great vid!
Jade, you definetly rock at vulgarization. And I love the misadventures of your cartoonish Jade.
haha she has a much more interesting life than I do
The high energy photon's face was absolutely hilarious!! Keep up the amazing work Jade.
You're awesome. I enjoyed the videos and animations even though I don't understand them all, I enjoyed your positive approach and personality. Thanks for sharing all this beautiful thoughts.
Best explanation ever. Big thanks. 😁
you're welcome!
Heisenberg may have discovered this.
The concepts are as clear as crystal. Excellent video!!
This is the best explanation of uncertainty principle!!! I've seen over 10 videos on this topic but none of them were so easy to understand Thankyou so much❤️
Great work Jade.
But the problem with most of the explanations with examples of HUP online is that they actually explain Epistemological HUP, not the Ontological HUP, which the QM physicists claim. Afaik, Every example you can think of to explain HUP is only Epistemological. They just add in the end that "not that you can't measure it, but it actually doesn't exist". I see the utility of the examples, but the very examples used actually has almost no connection with the actual concept of HUP claimed by the QM physicists. Most of the lay people who try to learn HUP with an example gets stuck with a wrong version of HUP, because the example conditions them with ontological realism, while no such thing is advocated by QM (Copenhagen and the Many worlds school).
She didn't like your comment...haha
From this explanation it seems that the uncertainty principle is something due to measurement. Namely: you if you measure the position (thus knowing it with precision) you can not know the velocity. But this is kind of intuitive, and you give the intuition with the tennis ball example. The quantum mechanics uncertainty principle is much more than that: it states that a particle cannot **have** both a precise position and velocity. It is not a matter of "disturbing" the particle, it is that the particle itself (being a wave) don't have a precise position AND velocity. Thus, I would rather emphasize the wave-particle duality (as you do in the second part), rather than on measurement.
Both points of view are completely equivalent and both are a bit inaccurate. The first one emphasizes typical "particle-like" properties, while the second emphasizes "wavelike" properties. But real quantum particles are neither classical particles nor classical waves. They are something new.
To be more specific, wavefunctions are not directly measurable. They instead describe what possible measurement results can be gotten from a given physical situation. The wavelike properties are precisely meant to mathematically model the experimentally observed fact that measurement disturbs the quantum system! So it's not really legitimate to point at this mathematical description and say that it is "not disturbance", because the whole is a logically consistent package.
Again, the first intuitive description is not "literally" true because we know that a naive hidden variables model like that can't work. However, a model with classical waves is just as "hidden variably" and won't work either. As intuition, either is fine, but it's important to understand where the analogy ends.
Thank you for the visuals....loved the video
When it comes to quantum mechanics there are tons of videos explaining all kinds of notions, but your videos beautifully explain the definition so simply.
What if we tried measuring the position & momentum of an electron near absolute zero temperatures, with the wavelength of a photo just above the Planck Scale, or with Quarks?
Gnaw-ledge!
What if we glue the electron to the tip of a heavy object. It can't move. Meaning it's position doesn't change and it's speed is zero.
Really nice explanation is given in 'The theoretical minimum '.Well, I sent a mail to Dr. Leonard suskind regarding what to choose among Engeering and pure physics to take a deep insight of the Nature both theoretically and mathematically but he didn't reply to that , he would be busy in his book at that time, still waiting for his reply,
Can You suggest me Up and Atom,
I am a high school student and going to finish my school in 2019.
Waiting for your reply eagerly.......
Since you are not getting answers, I'll try: it doesn't much matter exactly what you choose to study; every field will give you insight into how Nature works, and at the same time you will find that every field of knowledge has its limitations. You should follow your desire. Find out what kind of education is most enjoyable for you and follow that. Everyone is different, so you must find your own path.
Your animations always make it easier to understand everything! You are very talented!
Your knowledge, accent, and everything makes this whole video better.
DAMN YOU MILDRED AND YOUR PROBABLY CONSISTENT SHOPPING HABITS , also your drawings are getting better and better each video
i agree DAMN YOU MIDLRED! and thanks n_n
This video actually really helped me understand all of this a lot better! Also, now we know how much time you spend stalking old ladies.
Was waiting for your video for many days, Jade. And it was worth it!!
I love the way she teaches.
sis you've an amazing way of making things so simple.
i was struggling to realise this principle,nobody could make me understand.but now I'm all cleared.
very thank you.
keep it up.
you're amazing!! I'm so happy
I am under the impression that uncertainty is not related how better can we measure it. It's intrinsic. It will be uncertain even if we don't measure it at all.
But nice video. 😁
Of course: Photons are the only way to carry information between particles, forgetting the Bosons for the Weak and Strong Nuclear Forces; they aren’t magnetically charged, so they can touch particles; brilliant
I'm quite satisfied with this video! After the comment I left in one of your previous video about how I think it's futile to try to explain quantum mechanics without the maths, it's nice to see the point of view you took this time! Keep up the good work (I know you worked hard on this one)!
Great explanation!! I just loved the animation :)
*when you don't have many friends and also don't have amazing grades*
Big Oof
This video is actually about Observer effect. It never gets to explain Uncertainty principle. Maybe someone could make it (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
This is just brilliant!! Thanks!!
Thank you for the vivid explaination on uncertainty principle.
The old lady is going to hit the bars barhopping🤐😳🙊😵😉😉😉🤫🤫🤫👊👍👏😱
haha oh that Mildred
@@upandatom You know it - just cause Mildred has snow on the roof doesn't mean she doesn't have a fire lit inside! 😂
Truth said the more i dig deep into my physics undergrad the less social life gets
😞
Beautiful presentation, it helped a lot!
I have understood so so so clearly, I am so thankful I got this video, you are the best in this field!
Gotta admire the dedication of Mildred watcher :-)
Who is here after Deepali ma'am asked us to watch this video #UEM Jaipur
I am
Here we go
Great video Jade! These videos are worth every penny for me.
I’m just learning about wave particle duality and the uncertainty principle in my chem class! This was so cool to see !
I'm sorry but fairly sure your intuitive explanation is the observer effect, not the Uncertainty Principle
what do you mean?
It's the same thing.
That you effect something when you try to measure it. It's not the Uncertainty Principle, it the Observer effect en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics). So things like throwing the ball at the basket ball or high energy light moving the electron isn't the Uncertainty Principle,
ResandOuies, it really is the same thing. There would be no uncertainty principle if measurement didn't fundamentally alter the quantum state, because you could simply make repeated measurements on the same state until you pinned down the relevant quantities. The uncertainty principle is just one of the manifestations of the noncommutativity of quantum mechanics, which itself represents the idea that systems are changed by measurement.
No, it has nothing to do with measurement. Even with a magical measurement tool that didn't effect the system you're measuring at all, you still could not know both position and momentum perfectly. As one gets more precise the other one get less so. By definition
You are a cupcake 😉
Thank you. That intuition explanation helped me.
Great lesson again (also funniest animation)! The time/frequency one always confused me (how knowing the exact time made the frequency (energy) uncertain) but you made that crystal clear, thanks! Also, visualizing position and momentum on the same graph was really helpful
Ur misleading 😄, it's observer effect
It's so debated that even without observer effect, you can never measure it, nature prohibits it
Even it is possible to measure it without affecting the object we measure, it is impossible because of the mathematics involved
very good way to explain a hard concept. I love your channel. excellent work
This was really helpful. Thank you
I've watched this multiple times and it's still at the top of my feed!?! How does this only have 26k views? It's a really good video
Great video! I loved the tennis/basketball example!
hi jade, this was such a good video, thank you so much!
I learned a lot. And your animations are friggin' hilarious!
Best description of Heisenberg I've ever seen... Finally it's not just "there's this weird quantum stuff" but something obvious enough to grasp... thanks.
wow! this video was fantastic! I had a fairly good idea about this subject but was hazy about the reason for the disturbance to the electron not any more thanks to you.
Very lovely video! Great content ^^
Keep it up!
Thank you so much for explaining this! I finally can understand this principle! Proud of you !!!
You are my greatest physics mentor ever meet in my life... Good explained...
I watched like 5 videos to understand this principle but finally, this video helped
Thank you very much :). This is a great explanation video.
So, I'm studying the history of Science. I had no idea that I wanted to do this until I took a class, and it COMPLETELY changed the course of my academic career. The problem is, I have zero science back round. I didn't even take physics in high school. So here I am trying to learn complicated theory from scratch. I have been doing countless hours of studying to familiarize myself with basic theory to be a better science historian in training. This is the absolute BEST video I have seen on Heisenberg. You break it down wonderfully. Thank you.
OMG I've studied economics my whole life and never had a single physics class, and I still got the idea! Excellent video with amazing (and hilarious) animations! THANK YOU!
This is the most clear and succinct explanation of the uncertainty principle I have ever seen. I've seen many other videos from big CZcamsrs too on this exact topic like; PBS Space Time, The Royal Institute, The Science Asylum, Veritasium, Fermilab and so on. Great job explaining it in such a good way! I can truly say I understand it enough to explain it to someone else that wants to know.
So nicely explained a pretty hard physics concept and smoothly made a reference to others. Great job, keep it up !!!
thanks :)
you´re sooooo gooddd!!! thanks from Brazil!!!
You're amazing!!!! this is an excellent explanation
You became an expert in guiding viewers through difficult concepts; Great work and happy that the bad time has been passed !
Your explanations are really helpful.... thank you...
Hey Jade,
This video was basic introduction about heisenberg's uncertainity principle. You should also upload videos containing it's other applications. Explaining diffraction of electrons in slits is a beautiful example of this.
Your way of explaining is amazing
This is really good. Thanks for the explanation.
Your videos(and you!)are solo wonderful!
Went through all videos on CZcams. The only one that made me understand it perfectly and actually get some idea that is understandable 😊🥰
You are awesome 😍 keep up the great work. Subscribed.
Very good video as always. I especially liked the animation.
Again, a great video. And amazing animations!
Such an excellent explanation for the Uncertainty principal, so intuitive.
Thanks for your videos they are very helpfull!