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ABSTRACT: Assuming different infinities are unequal leads to strange and counter-intuitive mathematical results such as Ramanujan's ...

Monday, July 4, 2016

Debunking and Confirming the Uncertainty Principle

What is the shortest distance between two points? In free, flat space it would have to be a perfectly straight line. Any other line is going to be greater or equal to that perfectly straight line. Does Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle work the same way?

Suppose we have a perfect line between points A and B. The perfectly straight line between them is xo, and that distance is equal to Planck's constant (h-bar) divided by momentum (p). If we can draw a straight line (x) between A and B, with no margin of error, then that line will be equal to h-bar/p and xo. If there is a margin of error, then x will be greater than or equal to h-bar/p--with an emphasis on "greater than."

Assuming error margins exist, it seems reasonable to assume the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is bullet proof. Since our line x is greater than or equal to xo, we can use this fact to show, in terms of momentum (where m=mass, v=velocity), that any arbitrary velocity is less than or equal to the speed of light (c).

From equation 2, we can derive a new uncertainty principle between mass (m) and position (x). Check out equations 6 and 7 below.

It has been argued that mass-less particles, i.e., photons are unaffected by the Uncertainty Principle. At equation 8 we substitute a photon's mass equivalent (fh/c^2). You can see that it is possible to know the photon's position and frequency (f) with great precision (h-bar/c), but there is still some uncertainty, some margin for error.

At equation 9 it appears the Uncertainty Principle is debunked--at least in part. We multiply both sides of equation 8 by velocity (v) and we get equation 9. If velocity is zero, it is possible to know the exact position and momentum of a particle. If velocity is light speed (c), then h-bar is the best we can do (with the exception of a mass-less particle). The median velocity is 1/2c. With that we can derive the original Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

3 comments:

  1. Maybe a dumb question, but isn't space/time curved?

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    1. Only when mass or energy is present; otherwise it's flat. Curved spacetime is also just a fancy way to describe linear acceleration. When jusmp from an airplane you fall straight but if you plot the total distance over the total time of the fall, you get a curved graph.

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