Maybe I'm a softy but this made me a little emotional

[♪alt13]

That's the essence of the issue. The position and velocity of your foot cannot be determined with better accuracy than the Heisenberg Uncertainty limit. However, there is no conceivable application where that level of imprecision can be of consequence for such a macro object. When it comes to measuring a particle however, uncertainty becomes much more significant. But the same laws apply to both situations.

There are certain things that happen on the quantum scale that are just not going to happen on the macro scale. I'm sure you've heard of the example of quantum tunneling. A particle has a decent chance of just teleporting across a thin barrier. A person does not, though. That is not because the laws of physics governing the human-scale are different, but because for a human to tunnel across a wall, a whole ****load of interacting molecules have to do it at the same time. That's pretty much impossible from a practical point of view.

Right I got it, but a water molecule is not a particle. I don't know how significant the effect is on the molecule scale but I thought it was already negligible.

Regardless the whole principle just reinforces my point. We don't need to know the exact position and/or velocity of every molecule to know the river. We don't need to know the exact position and/or velocity of every fan in the esa to have an understanding of what the crowd looks like. We don't need to know the position of every asteroid in the solar system in order to map it. We don't need to know the exact position and velocity of every galaxy in our cluster to create a decent model. Hack wants a level of certainty that just isn't necessary.

 

[Siro]

Right I got it, but a water molecule is not a particle. I don't know how significant the effect is on the molecule scale but I thought it was already negligible.

Regardless the whole principle just reinforces my point. We don't need to know the exact position and/or velocity of every molecule to know the river. We don't need to know the exact position and/or velocity of every fan in the esa to have an understanding of what the crowd looks like. We don't need to know the position of every asteroid in the solar system in order to map it. We don't need to know the exact position and velocity of every galaxy in our cluster to create a decent model. Hack wants a level of certainty that just isn't necessary.

Of course. My comment was in jest anyway. And whether the effect is negligible depends on what you're trying to accomplish. A water molecule is a very tiny thing, and the effect of measurement, even if it is the bouncing of a single photon off the molecule, would still be meaningful.

 

[LogGrad98]

It's a good thing we have Heisenberg Compensators to take care of that uncertainty piece for us.

Thanks Obama!

 

[ema]

Reminded me of this video. Is this the same thing they are talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g031BkhcPKc#t=168

 

[LogGrad98]

Reminded me of this video. Is this the same thing they are talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g031BkhcPKc#t=168

Kind of what this says to me is the biggest thing in the universe, is the universe.

 

[One Brow]

Really I thought a water molecule was big enough. You usually here about photons and the like when this quantum **** is discussed. At what scale does this rule begin?

Uncertainty applies at all scales. However, as the amount of momentum increases, the amount of uncertainty in position dwindles past the point of measurement error.