With the NEET exam around the corner; I remember those days and nights of endless studying!
If you felt sleepy then you can either listen to music (instrumental or Pink Floyd!) or make a cup of tea!
One hack was to solve some mathematical problems which would literally wake me up since it was my favourite subject (Ironical I know!)!
The most common would be to calculate the speed or position of an object or solve an equation!
But (!!) if you think in broader sense then it is actually not possible because of a famous (now infamous!) principle!
So we think can measure a car traveling at 60 KM per hour or a tortoise crawling at 0.5 KM per hour and simultaneously pinpoint where the objects are located. But in the quantum world of particles, making these calculations is not possible due to a fundamental mathematical relationship called the uncertainty principle!
Formulated by the German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the uncertainty principle states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle’s position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa!
In other words, if we could shrink a tortoise down to the size of an electron, we would only be able to precisely calculate its speed or its location, not both at the same time!
The only thing certain in Physics and Mathematics was the fact that you get proper answers to any questions! That was the beauty of these subjects! But Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle actually made that impossible!
Which is why you have a group of jokes called the Heisenberg uncertainty jokes!
One famous joke which was made popular by Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular jokes in the quantum world! So much so that even Robert mentioned it in his novel Determined!
Heisenberg is speeding down the highway when a cop pulls him over.
The officer asks, “Sir, do you know how fast you were going?”
Heisenberg replies, “No, but I know exactly where I am!”
The officer, confused, says, “You were going 108 miles per hour!”
Heisenberg throws his arms up and cries, “Great! Now I’m lost!”!
There is also a Schrödinger’s Addition if you know what I mean!
After Heisenberg’s outburst, the cop searches the car and finds a dead cat in the trunk. He yells, “Hey! Did you know you have a dead cat back here?” Schrödinger replies, “Well, I do now!”!
While web Browsing you may even come across this common tech-physics meme which shows a pop-up saying “This website wants to know your location” with the caption: “Deny. Allow. Heisenberg.”!
Many of these principles sometimes reminds me of what my grandmother used to say; Ellam MAYA!
The connection between the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the bharatiya concept of Maya lies in their shared view that the world as we perceive it—definite, separate, and fixed—is not the ultimate reality!
In fact both Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, noted that quantum indeterminacy mirrors the ancient Vedantic idea that our senses provide a “deception” or a limited projection of a deeper, unified truth!
That’s deep! In fact even sometimes cartoons apart from being funny also convey serious message! Like the toons by Mario Miranda! I love cartoons and cartoonists since my natural sketch is cartoonish!
Now sleep or not! Keep Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger guessing!
Subh ratri!
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