Re: progress in understanding

Posted by DickT on September 03, 2003 at 12:05:40:

In Reply to: Re: progress in understanding posted by pelastration on September 03, 2003 at 04:05:01:

pelastrion,

Re: Uncertainty and error. I have seen uncertainty explained as std. dev of amplitude wave in elementary quantum physics texts, but that doesn't seem to grasp the way it is used in, say, QFT.

Another sense of uncertainty from the two Osher mentioned is variation. As in; a manufacturing process shows a certain variation - this could be reduced to std. dev. in the hisoric frequency distribution of the process, but in real time, and dynamically, it's a different thing, variation, as any production manager will inform you. And that seems to capture better the sense that modern field theorists use the term.

Of course it's "pop physics" to talk about uncertainty at all. The thing they have in the math is commutation rules, and they seldom bother to work out the derivation of uncertainty once you leave the elementary theory. So really criticising QFT based on uncertainty is a bit like criticising the USA because of the injuries fireworks cause on the fourth of July.

Regards,
Dick

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