Re:The “uncertainty principle” is a mis-translation (2014)
by lisper on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:57PM
(#11739435)
> as far as I know, the uncertainty principle means that as the signal in the time domain gets more localized, the signal in the frequency domain gets more spread out (and vica versa).
That is exactly right.
And you can also tell a similar story for the position-velocity relationship: if you make a wave by throwing a rock into a pond the resulting wave front will be circular, i.e. the position of origin of the wave is well defined (it's where the rock landed), but its direction of travel is not.
By way of contrast, if you want to make a wave with a well-defined direction of travel, the only way to do it is to make a very wide wavefront, i.e. one whose position is not well determined.
That is exactly right.
And you can also tell a similar story for the position-velocity relationship: if you make a wave by throwing a rock into a pond the resulting wave front will be circular, i.e. the position of origin of the wave is well defined (it's where the rock landed), but its direction of travel is not.
By way of contrast, if you want to make a wave with a well-defined direction of travel, the only way to do it is to make a very wide wavefront, i.e. one whose position is not well determined.