[extropy-chat] still no biscuit!

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> At 05:56 PM 1/19/2005 -0500, Jeff Medina wrote:
> >Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle does not
> conflict with conservation
> >of momentum. It is a limit on measurement
> capabilities, not an
> >indicator that momentum goes "all over the ship"
> when position is
> >measured.
> 
> This is simply wrong (as I understand it). It seems
> to imply that with 
> finer or smarter measuring instruments, we could
> home in on both properties 
> simultaneously; this seems to be incorrect. What's
> more, if one knows 
> position perfectly, momentum can be *anything at
> all*, and vice versa. It 
> probably won't be, for stochastic reasons, but it
> could be.

You're saying the same thing, actually - but from
different points of view.  Jeff's saying that a single
(imprecise) measurement of position does not cause
momentum to alter, specifically not to go outside the
bounds it is otherwise known to be within.  You're
pointing out that if position is measured precisely,
et cetera.