Re: Uncertainty principle

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:49:13 GMT wrote "Dirk Van de moortel"
<dirkvandemoortel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.physics with
<J493g.389750$bO1.11148351@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

"Gerhard W. Gruber" <sparhawk@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:ir5q421lsq91pi00tbheoqrfn9cfim44br@xxxxxxxxxx
I have no problem with accepting the Heisenbergs uncertainty principle. IMO it
follows quite logically if you don't assume an infinite universe, just like it
logically follows that there must be a speed limit somewhere.

Of course none of this follows *logically* from anything.
The notions of Heisenbergs principle and the speed limit merely
model what we experience about the world.

I disagree. If we assume a finite universe it follows that these limitations
exist purely by logic IMO.

We can see that, by taking a certain amount of energy and translate it into
speed, there is a limit how much the object can be accelerated. Finite amount
of energy translates into a finite amount of final speed. The faster you get,
the more energy do you need to accelerate yet a little more, so we need even
more energy.
Assuming that the universe is finite, it would follow, that the maximum amount
of energy we can put into the acceleration of a particle would be the total
amount of energy available in our univers minus the particle that we want to
accelerate. And from this it follows, that there has to be a finite maximum
speed. It happens to be the speed of light in our case, but this is just how
our universe works and doesn't have to be that way.

A similar argument can be constructed for the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle.

But repeating this over and over for every principle is a bit tedious,
so most authors assume that the reader will understand.

I can understand that and as I said, it's not a big issue really, it just felt
strange. :)
.

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