Quantum indeterminacy

Quantum indeterminacy (a terminology preferred over nondeterminism by Niels Bohr) is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one the of characteristics of quantum physics. Prior to quantum physics, it was thought that a physical system had a determinate state which uniquely determined all measurable properties of the system. The subject matter of physics was finding the laws that characterized the behavior of system state. Albert Einstein may have been the first person to carefully point out the radical effect the new quantum physics would have on our notion of state (see below).

Related Topics:
Niels Bohr - Quantum physics - State - Albert Einstein

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Quantum indeterminacy can be quantitatively characterized by a probability distribution on the set of outcomes of measurements of an observable. For pairs of complementary observables, the dispersions of the corresponding distributions are related by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Related Topics:
Probability distribution - Measurements - Observable - Complementary - Dispersion - Heisenberg uncertainty principle

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