Heisenberg's Microscope - Problems With The Argument

Problems With The Argument

This thought experiment was formulated to help in introducing Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which stands as one of the pillars of modern physics and as a theory that has been tested and confirmed countless times. That being said, the thought experiment has the somewhat unusual characteristic of attacking the premises under which it was constructed (Reductio ad absurdum), or at least of being involved in the development of an area of physics, quantum mechanics, that redefined the terms under which the original thought experiment was conceived. Quantum mechanics questions whether electrons actually have a determinate position before they are disturbed by the measurement that one might try to use to establish that they have such determinate positions. Under a more thorough quantum mechanical analysis, an electron has some probability of showing up at any point in the universe, but the probability that it will be far from where one might expect it to be becomes very low for places at great distances from the neighborhood in which it was originally found. In other words, the "position" of an electron can only be stated in terms of a probability distribution, and predictions of where it will move to can also only be given in terms of a probability distribution.