Uncertainty

[John_F_Renish -at- notes -dot- seagate -dot- com]

Alan D. Miller wrote:

<snip>
One of the consequences of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is that
until an event is measured, it exists in all its possible outcomes
(velocity,
position, state, etc.). . .
Parmenedes said that we cannot perceive the truth. Heisenberg said we
cannot
measure all the parameters of an event without changing them. In effect
both are
saying the same thing: truth cannot be acquired through our senses.
Parmenedes
went one step further and said we can conceive of the truth, if we can put
aside
our perceptions.
</snip>

_Pace_ Mr. Miller, Heisenberg was talking about the specific oddities of
quantum effects on the level of photons, electrons, protons, and the like,
but not at the level of, say, molecules and larger agglomerations of matter
 It's theoretically possible for each particle in my body to be at the
specific quantum state that would allow it to sink to the center of the
Earth, but because these effects are random, it ain't gonna happen.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle does _not_ apply in the macro world and
therefore has nothing whatever to do with what Parmenedes was talking
about. In the macro world, Shroedinger's Cat cannot be simultaneously alive
and dead or in an indeterminate state of "aliveness". The fact that I open
the box and see the live cat tells me that the radioactive atom in the
experiment has not yet decayed, nor does uncertainty prevent the atom from
decaying while I watch, triggering the release of the gas that poisons both
the cat and me.*

While I cannot know the quantum state of every particle in my body, my
body's gross reality (intentional pun) is easily perceived objectively: I
can determine its mass, its physical dimensions, its electrical potentials,
its electrical resistance, its electrical impedance, its density, its
percentage of body fat, its reflection characteristics, and so on with a
high degree of expectation that others trained in such mensuration would
agree with those determinations. Where Parmenedes' philosophy comes in is
that my wife thinks I'm cute, but then she thinks Gerard Depardieu is sexy.

Tie-in to technical writing: don't confuse quantum and macro effects. The
engineers you work with will thank you and so will your readers.

*Schroedinger's Cat is a famous thought experiment proposed by Erwin
Shroedinger in 1935: A cat is put into a box with a cylinder of poison gas.
The gas will be released when a detector determines that a single unstable
atom decays. If we do not observe the box for some period, we must assume
the cat's state is superposed between life and death during that period.
Shroedinger created the thought experiment to show that superposition of
the quantum state has no direct analog in the macro world.

John_F_Renish -at- notes -dot- seagate -dot- com, San Jose, California, USA
MY COMMENTS REPRESENT MY PERSONAL VIEWS AND NOT THOSE OF MY EMPLOYER.
"I knew nothing of reality until Mummy died. She'd shielded us from
everything. And then suddenly I was having to deal with the butler, the two
chauffeurs, the cook, and everyone else."
--Charlotte Brown (nee de Rothschild) in the London Sunday Times