Tel-Aviv University
School of Mathematical Sciences

Department Colloquium

TIDY Distinguished lecture in Mathematical Physics


Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Schreiber 008, 11:10

PLEASE NOTE THE SPECIAL DATE AND TIME



Paul Busch 

University of York



Quantum Uncertainty - in All Its Guises



Abstract:
The Uncertainty Principle, conceived by W. Heisenberg in 1927, epitomises the fundamental philosophical
implications of quantum mechanics and its radical departure from classical physics. For decades, there
has been an air of vagueness and perhaps even mystique around its formulation and interpretation, which
may have contributed to the media hype in 2012 when it was announced that the principle had been
experimentally violated. In this lecture I survey precise mathematical formulations of Heisenberg's principle
in all its guises as a statement about (a) uncertainties, (b) unsharpness, (c) measurement inaccuracies, and
(d) disturbance due to measurement. Recent claims about the failure of the principle are shown to be
untenable and found to have arisen from the unwarranted extrapolation of classical physical intuitions about
measurement inaccuracies.





Coffee will be served at 11:00 before the lecture
at Schreiber building 008