This was a fun way to visualize the fundamental problems in capturing both the speed and location of a particle. And in this photo we can see exactly where the bird is in the space but we have no idea if he was moving at all. If we speed up the shutter speed even more we can finally lock down the exact location of the bird and its wings. If we speed up the shutter speed we can lock down the exact location of the bird and its wings. I can tell you where his head is but I have no idea where his wings are! The wings are moving so fast in this image that their actual location is almost impossible to judge. The blurred wings tell us something about the speed the wings are moving but not their exact location. So please do keep in mind that these hummingbirds photos are just a way to try and help us visualize what happens on super-small scales and is obviously not an accurate representation of particle physics. Of course please remember that when physicists are talking about the uncertainty principle they are actually talking about tiny particles and the quantum realm. I decided to snap some photos of the fastest things I could find in my yard and found some hummingbirds more than ready to demonstrate their wing speed and the uncertainty principle for us! I thought it would be fun to go outside and take some photos to try and recreate this analogy. Because of how you view an object you can only clearly capture one bit of information or the other. Much in the same way you that you can’t determine the exact speed and location of a particle, you can’t capture both movement and exact location in a photo. That photo can give you information on the exact location of the object but no information as to how fast it was moving. Werner Heisenberg s simple idea tells us why atoms dont implode, how the sun manages to shine and, strangely, that the vacuum of space is not actually empty. ![]() If you instead turn up the shutter speed you can get a photo of the object in focus and seemingly frozen in place. ![]() ![]() Thirty years later the Anger gamma camera would allow for a more. Therefor, the image is giving you some information about the movement through space or speed of the object but not its exact location. The introduction of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle and Nuclear Cardiology occurred simultaneously in 1925-1927. If you take a photo of a moving object with a slow shutter speed the image you get back of that object will be blurred. In the book he tells you to imagine you are taking a photograph. Lucky for us, I stumbled across what may be the best analogy I have heard that helps to explains this principle in Brian Greene’s book, The Hidden Reality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |