h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle - A876954
Author: Researcher 209427 - U209427

I wrote this for a 1st year university physics essay and got 100%! Perhaps not for scientific ability, however - the brief was to make it understandable to a 1st year philosphy student!
I hope you enjoy reviewing this.

Hi there,

Very interesting entry on a challenging subject.

You obviously know your stuff, however I don't think this is Edited Guide material as it stands.

A bit of reworking would make it more intelligible to the uninitiated. I also think that it would benefit from being more focussed on the Uncertainty Principle (you seem to leave this behind somewhere in the middle...).

Layout tip: a few headers would not go amiss, to make it easier for the reader to follow you.

>>Specifically, it challenges traditional (or "classical") concepts in physics with often more satisfactory explanations for scientific observations.

Which has the 'more satisfactory explanations' in this sentence - the 'it' or the 'traditional concepts'? And in what way are they satisfactory? You might want to clarify this by mentioning that up until then, the universe was thought to be 'deterministic' (classical physics), and that if we knew the position and speed of all the objects in the universe at any one time, we could use Newton's laws to determine their position at any other time. This would also explain what 'uncertainty' means in this context, i.e. the opposite of deterministic.

Also you might wanna explain what a 'quantum' is and how it relates to Planck.

>>he said that the sum of the errors of two complimentary variables must be almost equal to a constant known as "h bar" (the fundamental constant, h, discovered by Max Plank, divided by 2pi).
The two variables being, presumably, position and velocity? You haven't explicitly said this.

>>Although this is all relevant, it does not fully answer to the title of this essay
I don't get this. The title of the essay isn't a question, so what's it supposed to be answering? "How much do we really know about our universe?" I got a bit confused here because I thought you were postulating a different question. If that's the question you want to answer, maybe you should say this at the beginning of the entry.

BTW, I would remove references to 'essay', otherwise it looks like you just copied this straight out of your homework.

>>We are only conscious.
Is there something missing in this sentence? Do you mean 'we are only conscious of one'?

>>Platonic theory of reality
I'm not sure how the Platonic theory of reality fits in here (by the way, why is it a 'so-called allegory'? It's just an allegory). Perhaps it's there because you were writing for philosophy students.

Plato describes a two-level system - the Ideal and the instances of that Ideal in the world. Which is not the same as an infinite number of universes containing infinite instances of a particular event. There's no notion of an 'ideal' event, just lots of different versions of one event, only one of which is observable by us.

Personally I'm not convinced by the Richard Hooker quotation. A horse doesn't cease to be a horse just because you drop it out of a building, it just becomes a dead horse (or an even less perfect manifestation of the Ideal Horse). Perhaps you'd better say who he is - doubtless he's very eminent (though not, I suspect, a vetrinarian).

>>struggle to define and control uncertainty
Aren't these two different things? I would have thought that the uncertainty principle was an attempt to define the phenomenon but not to control it. And why is it not relevant?

There's another edited entry on HUP - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A408638 - which is a good deal shorter than yours, but you might want to link to it at some point.

Overall I would say that you've chosed quite a tricky subject for an entry, so I hope you don't mind my comments, which are very much intended to be constructive.

Gubernatrix

Hi there.

Thanks for your comments. I kind of thought that the "essay" references were a bit dodgy! And I take your points about the layout, and overall presentation - I haven't done enough to adapt to a different audience.

I also see your points about the sentence structure, etc. and I'll amend these sometime soon.

This is my first entry - as you may have noticed - so I'm really just probing around to see how this place works!

Best wishes,

Adam.

Hi there, 2+0-9+42+7, I certainly wouldn't have given you 100%. The man's name is Heisenberg!
But seriously, it's a good piece, but I think it might need to be made even simpler. Most h2g2 readers can probably outthink a 1st year philosophy student, but you can't assume that when writing... or maybe you can, I don't make the rules. A couple of points though:

"relatively new field of study" raises the question, how old is it? A brief introduction to the man Werner Heisenberg would be nice here.

"measure any property of a quantum with infinite precision" this is the first time you use quantum in the entry, apart from as a part of 'quantum theory'. It would probably be good to explain here what it means.

"begs the question" you used this term only once, but incorrectly, it doesn't mean 'raises the question' You can find an explanation of its correct use here: http://www.word-detective.com/back-m.html#beg

I'll be back when I have more time, or perhaps when you've had time to make an adjustment or two. Keep up the good work.

Hmmm, I'm not sure....

Thanks to everyone for the feedback! I hate having things picked at, but I realise it's all part of the process and it does - in the end - help my development!

What is McKay The Disorganised not sure about?

PS do people think this would benefit from being listed elsewhere? The subject matter is afterall not entirely scientific.

It is the uncertainty principle .

It was meant as a tag to come back and read it when I had time to study it, rather than browse - apologies for attempt at humour.

Hi Researcher 209427,

I started reading this, but i'm not at all clued up about physics, classical or otherwise, and found it somewhat confusing.

I decided to check h2g2 for an entry on Quantum physics, and there is indeed an edited entry you could link to in your opening para. A781823 - Quantum Mechanics

However, there are also edited entries on other subjects touched on in your piece, and indeed, an edited entry on this specific subject.

Edited entries are not set in stone, and if you'd like to update the existing one, that can be arranged (you may be able to co-operate with the author on an update, and should certainly at least mention it to them)

It's always a good idea to use the search engine to see what is already in the edited guide (ie, has been through Peer Review and 'accepted' and then 'edited' and then appeared on the front page).

btw, i didn't quite understand your question about it not being 'scientific'... What did you mean?

and finally... Don't Panic! Whatever happens to this, it looks like good work and i wouldn't want you to be put off posting other entries in this forum because of anybody saying 'Sorry, that's already been done'

cya
spiff

Hi 'gain!

I'm going to spend some time editing the piece, taking into consideration all your points.

I'll let you know when it's done!

AM

Hello,

A408638 is an old Edited Entry on exactly the same topic. The existing Edited Entry is bit thin, but I guess the problem is that it exists. The bigger problem is that the update headquarters don't work very well, because it's on a VERY voluntary basis, IIRC.

There is also a number of non-Edited Entries on that topic. Most of them have been in PR, and one with some good information is currently rusting in the Flea-Market. Maybe it would be the best thing to get them all together, exctract all the good bits and make a good new one...

Just my suggestion,

HELL

Two things

1. What's happening with this? Is it going to update HQ?

2. Be careful what you say about 1st year philosophy students. I used to be one. At that time, one of my hobbies was physicist bating, so just watch it! Philosophers (I deny that there is such thing as a philosophy student - it's an activity after all) are people to be reckoned with!

Otto

Whatever happens can we have more paragraphs please. My eyes hurt

Otherwise .. I enjoyed this artlicle

Hath
x

I'm trying to pull together two Flea Market entries and the current edited entry on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. My version will have lots of paragraphs!

RhoMuNuQ

The Heisenberg uncertaintiy formula that the PRODUCT of the uncertainties must be creater than or equal to h/4PI, or hbar/2. You put the sum, which is incorrect.