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Heisenberg's uncertainty relation of position and momentum in experiments without mutual disturbance

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Foundations of Physics Letters

Abstract

Arranging target atoms in a plane monolayer, one may produce by atomic or nuclear reaction an ensemble of particles with small initial position spread without disturbing their momentum spread. This would either allow a violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty relation, by creating a situation not described by quantum mechanics hence rendering quantum mechanics incomplete, or, if the uncertainty relation should hold also in this non-disturbative situation, it would mean a permanent violation of energy conservation. Thus an uncertainty relation for position and momentum and energy conservation appear to be mutually exclusive.

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1. Recently also Croca [5] proposed another way of determining a Δx without interfering with pX.

2. To forbid even speaking of an initial position spread smaller than that indicated by the wave function [6] would amount to circular reasoning and the denial of a falsification of quantum mechanics.

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Koch, T., Scheer, J., Ziggel, H. et al. Heisenberg's uncertainty relation of position and momentum in experiments without mutual disturbance. Found Phys Lett 3, 249–254 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00666015

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00666015

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