[Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (inspired by the TV show Breaking Bad)]
This is not meth.
Even before I throw the ball, you can predict
where it’s going to land--
right on the other side of the slit
Ball after ball after ball, as long as I throw
it straight, it will land straight
on the other side.
But once you change from the macroscopic world
to the microscopic world, things get strange.
Now, let’s do the same experiment, but with
an electron and a slit the size of an atom.
What happens now?
Woah!
How does that happen?
Why is it that when the slit gets smaller,
the band gets wider?
Let’s take a closer look.
Based off of our observations, the more accurately
we try to pinpoint the location of the electron
( in this case the x direction), the velocity,
which previously only had a vertical component,
somehow gains a horizontal component as it
passes through the slit, making the velocity
less accurate.
When we make the slit wider, which makes the
position less accurate, the electron sees
a decrease in the x-component of its velocity,
which makes the velocity more accurate.
Yeah Mr. White, Yeah science!
All objects have a wave-particle duality,
meaning that it can act both as a wave and
as a particle, which is why it is impossible
to pinpoint the exact position of a
moving electron.
We can sum our findings up into a nice equation
known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Heisenberg?
No, not Walter White from Breaking Bad, the
real Heisenberg.
Werner Heisenberg!
In mathematical terms, the uncertainty of
the position times the uncertainty of the
momentum, (and momentum is just mass times
velocity), is always larger or equal to h,
which is Planck’s constant, over 4 pi.
We can rearrange this equation to fit our
findings.
Since h/4 pi is a constant, the greater accuracy
we know about its position, the lesser the
accuracy we’ll know about the electron’s
momentum.
And vice versa.
Want to find the range of the electron’s
velocity?
If the electron was confined to a space the
size of an atom, that means that the uncertainty
in the velocity is 2x10 ^5 m/s or between
-1x10^5 m/s to 1x10^5 m/s,
either going to the left or right side!
That is a big difference.
But wait a sec, why don’t we see the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle happen in a our daily lives,
like this tennis ball?
Let’s put it in the equation.
15 If the tennis ball weighs 60 grams and
is confined to a space of 7 cm, that means
that the uncertainty of the ball’s velocity
is 1.25 x 10 - 32 m/s.That number is so small
it’s essentially zero, which is why we don't
see the uncertainty principle happen in our
daily lives.
I wonder how it would look like if it did?
