Can we have a General Uncertainty Principle?

Question

When we talk about the result of a particular event, we only put forward our opinion on the possibility of the most probable result. But we are never exactly 100% sure on the occurrence of our opinion, are we? For example, if we agree with the statement, “A dog will NEVER be able to learn physics”, we are only posting our opinion on it, about which we are 99.95 % certain (say), but not 100% certain. In fact, I don’t think it will ever be possible for us to be absolutely 100% certain about the occurrence of a particular event, because the Theory of Everything, as it is (or rather, would be) called, which, if stated, would take care of ALL the Sciences, has not been formulated yet.

As another ‘physical’ example, we can also never be 100% sure when we say, “The velocity of this body is 43.784 m/s”; we can only be sure to a certain extent, say 99.998%, beyond which it is not possible to ascertain the velocity. And this is not because of experimental errors, or errors in measurement, etc; in fact, this is an inherent property of ANY event that we can never predict or measure it with exactly 100% accuracy. So, words like “exact, “precise”, absolute”, etc lose their significance in the realm of this thought & discussion. In that case, can we postulate a General Principle of Uncertainty, which would say, “It is impossible to determine the occurrence of any event with absolute certainty, unless it is a definition.” ? I use the word ‘definition’ ‘coz if we define an event, it has got to be 100% certain. For example, when we say, “A meter has 100 centimeters”, we are exactly 100% certain about its validity, as a meter is defined that way. But we are not 100% sure about the validity of the statement, “He has walked 100 meters today.”

Hope you understand what I mean? Any comment(s), criticism & correction (in case I’m wrong somewhere) are welcome.

Answer 1

I don't know.

Actually, a dog that can catch a thrown ball in it's mouth has learned quite a bit of practical physics without knowing about force being mass times acceleration or the mathematics of ballistics.

What you are talking about are errors. I can measure the length of a bit of timber with a carpenters rule and say it is 2.41 meters long but that means it's between 2.405 and 2.415 meters long, or if you like 2.41 +/- 0.01 meters.

All physical measurements are subject to the same kind of errors, whether the length of a board, the percentage of moisture in soil or the age of the Universe. The mark of good measurement is to reduce the errors and to measure or estimate their maximum value.

Answer 2

Uncertainty relationship is a bit of a misnomer for Heisenberg, and it is causing you to conflate two ideas. Everything you talk about falls into the realm of what would be called experimental or observational error. That is, there may well be an underlying value but the accuracy with which it can be determined is practically limited. The Heisenberg relation does not say this. It says that there is a fundamental limit on the information that can be extracted from a system. But this limit occurs only with paris of values of what are called conjugate variables. The Heisenberg relation says that conjugate variables do not commute, while classical physics says they do. The difference is of order 10^-34 - so absolutely minute and beyond any typical measureing error classically.

Answer 3

maybe, maybe not... I am unsure.