Thursday 27 October 2022

The Uncertainty Of Position x Momentum Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 213):
Because of the wave-particle duality of entities such as electrons, it is impossible to attribute to them precisely certain properties, such as possessing a well-defined path through space, that we are used to thinking of in connection with macroscopic objects like a bullet or a planet in its orbit. Thus, when an electron goes from A to B, its trajectory is fuzzed out by quantum uncertainty, as described by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. 
In one form, this principle states that you cannot know, at any instant, both the position and the momentum of a quantum particle. Indeed, it goes deeper — it says that a quantum particle does not possess both a definite momentum and a definite position simultaneously. If you try to measure accurately the position, you lose information about the momentum, and vice versa. There is an irreducible trade-off between these two qualities. Either can be known as accurately as you like, but only at the expense of the other.


Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, an observer's uncertainty lies in the probabilistic nature of instantiation. If an electron is observed for the duration of its trajectory from A to B, then one well-defined path of its potential paths is instantiated. If the electron is only observed at A and B, then the path that the electron takes between them is not instantiated, and so remains probabilistic potential.

From the same perspective, the 'irreducible trade-off' between position and momentum demonstrates the interdependence of these two variables, in as much as the instantiation probabilities of position and momentum are inversely proportional: the more probable the construal of one, the less probable the construal of the other.

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