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Blog post: swansont: It's All Because of the Wave

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WHEN THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE GOES UP TO 11…

 

Unfortunately, the uncertainty principle continues to be explained — at least in many pop sci accounts […] — in terms of the disturbance that a measurement causes to a quantum system. This rather frustratingly fails to put across the fundamental essence of the uncertainty principle and can be somewhat misleading for students.

 

The uncertainty principle is simply an unavoidable and natural consequence of imbuing matter with wavelike characteristics.

 

"Somewhat misleading" is a tad tame, here. It's wrong. Even though it's how he originally framed it, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is not the measurement problem.
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