8vo. Contemporary blue buckram; blue cloth folding case. Provenance: Mount Wilson Observatory, Carnegie Institution of Washington (blindstamp on flyleaf and a few discreet pencil markings).

 

HEISENBERG’S UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE, ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES IN MODERN SCIENCE. 

 

FIRST EDITION, journal issue. In describing the uncertainty principle, Heisenberg established that it is impossible to calculate the position and momentum of a subatomic particle with perfect accuracy.  The more precisely the position of a particle is known, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa. “The uncertainty principle gave full weight to an idea that had been known to physics for several years: namely, that ordinary language cannot describe the atom. The atom can only be measured, and into these measurements is built inherent uncertainty due to the limitations of human perception” (Simmons, the Scientific 100). Heisenberg insisted that theory should only include observable elements, and therefore the uncertainty principle required a new approach to describing the atom, forcing scientists to admit the impossibility of being able to understand the position and velocity of every particle in the universe.  “Heisenberg’s result is not a statement about the inability to construct good measuring devices. It is a statement about an intrinsic property of nature... Nature has an essential indeterminacy. Nature can be pinned down only so far and no farther. Heisenberg’s…uncertainty principle, is one of the most important and famous discoveries of all science” (Lightman, Great Ideas in Physics, p.210).