- #1
sanman
- 745
- 24
I notice that many physicists say that virtual particle fluctuations occur in space "because Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle allows them"
Is this really the best form of reasoning?
Isn't it actually the other way around - that because virtual particle fluctuations happen, then there is a Heisenberg Uncertainty?
Is the distinction I'm making trivial? To me, it's about Causality - the fluctuations create uncertainty, and not the other way around. Otherwise, it's like putting the cart before the horse and saying my alarm clock failure happens because my pay is docked for tardiness, rather than saying my pay is docked for tardiness after my alarm clock failure.
Shouldn't Occam's Razor apply here? Why do we trivialize Causality by claiming fluctuations happen as a consequence of uncertainty, rather than claiming uncertainty is a consequence of fluctuations?
I want to know if this convoluted reasoning was the result of our limited measurement capabilities in measuring vacuum fluctuations to begin with. It seems to me that because we couldn't really measure vacuum fluctuations before, that we had to turn to statistics as the measurement of last resort in order to describe the world of quantum mechanics. And then within the confines of statistics and uncertainty we then saw that the vacuum fluctuations were possible.
But now that we know that vacuum fluctuations happen, why are we not able to re-order our knowledge to state that Heisenberg's Uncertainty is the result of Vacuum Fluctuations? Why do we persist in still claiming that the Vacuum Fluctuations are the result of Uncertainty?
Shouldn't physics continually try to condense or deconstruct everything into what's most intuitive and logical? Isn't that the whole reason for physics in the first place? Why should we continue to stay hostage to our previous inability to measure things that we can now acknowledge we see?
Am I being a nitpick here?
Is this really the best form of reasoning?
Isn't it actually the other way around - that because virtual particle fluctuations happen, then there is a Heisenberg Uncertainty?
Is the distinction I'm making trivial? To me, it's about Causality - the fluctuations create uncertainty, and not the other way around. Otherwise, it's like putting the cart before the horse and saying my alarm clock failure happens because my pay is docked for tardiness, rather than saying my pay is docked for tardiness after my alarm clock failure.
Shouldn't Occam's Razor apply here? Why do we trivialize Causality by claiming fluctuations happen as a consequence of uncertainty, rather than claiming uncertainty is a consequence of fluctuations?
I want to know if this convoluted reasoning was the result of our limited measurement capabilities in measuring vacuum fluctuations to begin with. It seems to me that because we couldn't really measure vacuum fluctuations before, that we had to turn to statistics as the measurement of last resort in order to describe the world of quantum mechanics. And then within the confines of statistics and uncertainty we then saw that the vacuum fluctuations were possible.
But now that we know that vacuum fluctuations happen, why are we not able to re-order our knowledge to state that Heisenberg's Uncertainty is the result of Vacuum Fluctuations? Why do we persist in still claiming that the Vacuum Fluctuations are the result of Uncertainty?
Shouldn't physics continually try to condense or deconstruct everything into what's most intuitive and logical? Isn't that the whole reason for physics in the first place? Why should we continue to stay hostage to our previous inability to measure things that we can now acknowledge we see?
Am I being a nitpick here?