Relaxing the Uncertainty Principle

[imatfaal]

"A quantum take on certainty: Physicists show that in the iconic double-slit experiment, uncertainty can be eased."

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110602/full/news.2011.344.html

 

 

and at SciAm

"New 'Double Slit' Experiment Skirts Uncertainty Principle"

http://www.scientifi...ainty-principle

 

 

and

 

 

"it is not necessary to interpret the uncertainty principle as rigidly as we are often taught to do" from the article itself and quoted in than the editorials

Does anyone have access to the article? I rather thought that the HUP was a black and white thing with no grey areas. So can you relax the HUP - or interpret it less than rigidly?

Surely σ_xσ_p≥h/4π either is a principle or it isn't; if the product is less then the HUP is not universal, or if the experiment complies with the inequality and there is no need for relaxation.

 

 

 

 

 

[swansont]

Bad science journalism. The average momentum and position was determined, just as the title ("Observing the Average Trajectories of Single Photons in a Two-Slit Interferometer") says. Not the instantaneous values, which is what the HUP restricts. Here's a good summary:

 

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/06/watching_photons_interfere_obs.php

 

 

Even the guy who did the experiment contradicts what is being reported in these stories/headline.

 

Steinberg stresses that his group's work does not challenge the uncertainty principle, pointing out that the results could, in principle, be predicted with standard quantum mechanics.

[imatfaal]

Thanks for clarifying and even more so for the link to Chad Orzel's blog. I hadn't realised he had covered it and his stuff is always good.

[Moontanman]

I'm getting to the point that i hate these sensationalized "science" stories....