Is the uncertainty principle culturally deranging?

[Keith Davis]

Perhaps I'm displaying my ignorance, but why the reference to Derrida and
Borges. From the quote above?



On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Prashant Kumar <
siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll see your Derrida and raise you a Borges.
>
> P.
>
> On 3 August 2012 01:02, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>  On 8/1/2012 9:47 PM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>>
>> The uncertainty principle as mentioned (as opposed to used) in
>> postmodernism and elsewhere is not the physicist's uncertainty principle.
>> If one misunderstands something aggressively enough it takes on a life of
>> its own.
>>
>>  Just for clarity, I should differentiate between two versions of the
>> HUP which have popular currency, and are (consequently) almost always
>> conflated.
>>
>>  Some people will tell you that the HUP forbids you from exactly
>> specifying position and momentum (think of momentum as how much something
>> hurts when it hits you); if I have a quantumball, I can't get both pieces
>> of information at a given instant. A more useful way of restating this is
>> that I can't *measure* both simultaneously. If I measure position, then
>> momentum, I don't get the same results as if I measure momentum then
>> position. This isn't true in classical physics.
>>
>>  In QM we don't know exact values of things like position and momentum.
>> Instead we work with probability distributions. HUP tells you that if you
>> know one quantity with some (statistical) degree of specificity, then the
>> other quantity is limited in a particular way. If I give you the position
>> of our quantumball exactly, you will have no idea of its momentum. This is
>> a consequence of the way wavefunctions work. It does *not* mean that our
>> knowledge is imperfect or incomplete. It means that there is no more there
>> to know. This is the modern understanding (modulo technical mathematical
>> caveats).
>>
>>  Usually something called Heisenberg's (the guy was prolific) microscope
>> enters the picture at this point. This thought experiment tries to imagine
>> the actual *process* of measurement, and see whether we can find some
>> physical reason for HUP. At the time of its formulation, the only known way
>> to measure a quantum state was to subject it to photons, measure it
>> directly or indeed just get in there and rustle around till you got what
>> you came for, leaving the quantum state spent and shivering under the
>> sheets. The argument was that the act of measurement, and the requisite
>> interaction, was responsible for the uncertainty principle: you changed the
>> state by mucking round with it, so you're not going to get exact results.
>>
>>  Problem is, today we know there is a class of measurements which are
>> known as *interaction-free, *you get information seemingly for free*,
>> without* directly addressing the state*. *And these measurements are
>> also subject to the HUP. This is a particularly dark kind of magic and I
>> won't go into it, but if you're interested check out the Elitzur-Vaidman
>> bomb tester. Interaction-free measurements have actually been performed in
>> a lab.
>>
>>  So if someone at a party tells you that the uncertainty principle
>> implies something about our knowledge of the universe, fundamental
>> inconsequentiality of human endeavour etc., you should shank them with your
>> champagne flute, then patiently explain the failure of Heisenberg's
>> microscope.
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Preshant.  Helpful explanation.
>>
>> If people want to talk about the uncertainty of knowledge, they still
>> have "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" to fall back on.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2 August 2012 07:10, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>>  On 8/1/2012 4:33 PM, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:
>>>
>>> Oh der*anging*.  Mr. Kohut is certainly *that*.  I would never use that
>>> word though, or any deranged derivative there, hem, of.  If I did it would
>>> be in the best sense possible, which for me would be exceedingly *good*.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Vidal claims he was using the word, if not necessarily in the best
>>> sense possible, not the worst sense either.
>>>
>>> Writing of the author of GR:  "Only a physicist who wrote good prose
>>> could tell us if, say, Heisenberg’s famous and culturally deranging
>>> principle is correctly used in these many, many pages."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>>>  Does anybody write here?  I just got an email, who knows why I'm on
>>> their list, I haven't tried to publish anything in years, from a place
>>> called AuthorHouse, subject says Publish today and get a no-cost bump-up.
>>>  So I guess it's free, today, if you want to get published.  I'm currently
>>> stuck on page 400 hell with no end in sight.  432.  What is it about 400?
>>>  The Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun and 400 times closer to it than
>>> the Earth, or something.  Bumping-up, m
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:
>>>
>>>>  On 8/1/2012 10:23 AM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Yes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> but not pejoratively so I hope
>>>>
>>>> P
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  P.
>>>>
>>>> On 1 August 2012 23:52, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1976/oct/28/plastic-fiction-3/
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>


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