Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Muzukashi Desu Ne

[Mulboyne]

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is one of the foundations of quantum mechanics. In simple terms, it says that we can't simultaneously know the value of two different properties of a particle because measuring one distorts the reading for the other. The wikipedia link above will shed more light on the topic for those who are interested. Now, however, Japanese researchers are suggesting that we have misunderstood the principle. We often think it is the act of measurement itself which causes the particle to appear to us in a certain way but we do know that the uncertainty is also in the quantum nature of the particle - we tend to speak as if the particle doesn't know what it is. A team led by Masanao Ozawa of Nagoya University has been looking at to what degree a particle is unknowable to us through the act of measurement and how much it is down to the particle itself. They have concluded that measuring is hardly an issue at all and the real uncertainty is almost entirely attributable to the fact particles are bonkers. The team was able to show experimentally that it's possible to reduce the disturbance caused by measurement to a level well below that predicted by Heisenberg.

The findings have just been published in British science journal Nature Physics.

German link
German translated to English via Babel

[Iraira]

I'm not really clear on the concept of the "particle not knowing what it is". The particle would be "aware of"/limited in its characteristics based on the vibration patterns of the mulch-dimensional string within it.
Well, if work's slow this morning, I'll sludge through the Germanglish version of the article.

[Yokohammer]

Had a hard time with the Babel translation, but it sounds like they're saying the quantum uncertainty exists as defined by current quantum physics, but they've simply gone back to not knowing why that is.

So this is progress in the sense that we've learned that everything we knew was wrong ... OK, that's an exaggeration .... we've learned that what has been considered a basic principle of physics has nothing to do with anything.

Sorta.

[cstaylor]

If it passes peer review, there could be a nobel prize in there for the researchers.

[Coligny]

Cats in boxes everywhere around the planet starting to be strangely nervous...

Like if an invisibul hand...

Nefarious invisibul hand...

Was getting ready to unleash death... or... not... upon dem'

[Typhoon]

Nature Physics: Experimental demonstration of a universally valid error–disturbance uncertainty relation in spin measurements

http://goo.gl/KTn1D

[Russell]

Nature Physics: Experimental demonstration of a universally valid error–]http://goo.gl/KTn1D[/url]

Looks like they experimentally verified a relation that was theoretically derived by Ozawa in 2003 and 2004. Ozawa is a pretty serious guy, unlike some of those frivolous Quantum guys out there who get all the research money. This could be very interesting.

Here is a link to a pre-print of the paper on arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.1833