Reference: Essays on Substance
The Uncertainty Principle
The following post, that I read many years ago on Quora, was very inspiring to me. This post was written by Richard Muller, Professor of Physics, U. Calif. Berkeley, co-Founder of Berkeley Earth.
An excellent explanation of uncertainty principle
Local reference (same)
The key point is that the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is an attempt to determine a point location in a dimension of space using pure mathematical relationships. Heisenberg starts out with the assumption that an electron is a point particle.
When we look closely at a particle we find that its location in space has an innate dimension equal to the wavelength of its substance. The de Broglie wavelength of matter is very, very small. This justifies assuming a center-of-mass for a material object as a “dimensionless” point. This definitely works at the macro level.
But the wave-length of matter becomes significant as we get down to the atomic and sub-atomic levels. The wave-length of nucleons may still be relatively small enough to treat them as point particles. But the wave-length of electrons is definitely not small. So, the location of an electron cannot assumed to be a dimensionless point within the smallness of the inside of an atom.
The error in Quantum mechanics has been to continue with the point particle assumption at atomic and sub-atomic levels, where it does not apply.
If this is properly understood and we can correct the mathematics being applied at quantum levels; then probably it will lead to much simpler understanding of the quantum phenomenon.
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