\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s turns out that you don\u2019t need a high-powered quantum experiment to observe Heisenberg\u2019s uncertainty Principle. You just need to go the beach.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Heisenberg\u2019s famous principle tells us that the more precisely we try to measure the position of a subatomic particle, the less we know about its momentum, and vice versa. While the roots of this principle lay in a fundamental mathematical property of quantum mechanics, it\u2019s easy enough to see this play out in a completely different context.<\/p>\n The next time you\u2019re at a beach, check out the waves rolling onto shore. If you happen to see a perfectly even line of wave crests following one after another, you are looking at something called a plane wave. Plane waves have extremely easy to measure wavelengths. You simply break out a ruler and measure the distance from wave crest to wave crest.<\/p>\n But if I were to ask you to pinpoint the location of the wave, you wouldn\u2019t be able to be that precise. You would just look out over the ocean, seeing all those beautiful waves lined up right against each other, and just wave your hand and say that the wave is just kind of all over the place.<\/p>\n So when it comes to plane waves, you can accurately measure their wavelength, but not their position.<\/p>\n \n