Timeline for Uncertainty principle in Harmonic Oscillator
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 5, 2014 at 4:26 | comment | added | DanielSank | @user43987: Correct! | |
| Oct 5, 2014 at 3:56 | comment | added | biryani | I understand it now. The position it self is undefined till measurement. | |
| Oct 4, 2014 at 20:39 | history | edited | DanielSank | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
More detail
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| Oct 4, 2014 at 17:12 | vote | accept | biryani | ||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 4:51 | comment | added | DanielSank | Before you make the measurement, the system is in the ground state $|0\rangle$. This state does not have definite momentum. Then you measure the system. This causes the state to change to a different state $|x_0\rangle$ which has nearly definite position but completely uncertain momentum. The number you calculate now for the "momentum before the measurement" means nothing because the state now is completely different from the state before the measurement. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 4:14 | vote | accept | biryani | ||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 4:14 | |||||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 4:05 | comment | added | biryani | Suppose I prepare 1000 systems and measure all of their positions and find that 250 out of the 1000 give me the same position. Then for all 250 I can calculate the momentum before measurement which will have the same value. Then if I try to measure momentum of these 250 samples I would get varying answers because the wave function has collapsed(as you pointed out). So then what of the number I calculated before? What does that represent? | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:58 | comment | added | biryani | We'll know it after the measurement. And the result can be used to find the momentum before measurement. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:50 | comment | added | DanielSank | We're talking about before the position measurement. You don't know the position yet. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:48 | comment | added | biryani | We can calculate Kinetic Energy from the total energy once we know the position(E-V). Then from the KE we can find the momentum. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:41 | comment | added | DanielSank | You know the energy before the measurement. How does this tell you the momentum? | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:34 | comment | added | biryani | Thanks for the answer. But using the total energy would still let me calculate the momentum the particle 'had before' I made the measurement. The momentum it had before the wave function collapsed | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:26 | vote | accept | biryani | ||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 4:14 | |||||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:26 | vote | accept | biryani | ||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:26 | |||||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:26 | vote | accept | biryani | ||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:26 | |||||
| Oct 1, 2014 at 3:08 | history | answered | DanielSank | CC BY-SA 3.0 |