Creative uses of the Uncertainty Principle

Disclaimer: In this blog post, I may make some wild and crazy claims, or possibly try to link things that are not necessarily meant to be linked. Please forgive me.
According to Hyperspace by Michio Kaki,

There is a finite, calculable probability that “impossible” events will occur. For example, I can calculate the probability that I will unexpectedly disappear and tunnel through the earth and reappear in Hawaii.

The probability of this actually happening is so small that it basically will not happen. Except that if the odds are a million-to-one (who knows?) then there’s a pretty good chance of success, because chances that are a million-to-one happen nine times out of ten, according to Terry Pratchett in Guards! Guards!

More seriously, the Uncertainty Principle pretty much confirms the fact that none of us has any idea what’s going on, even though we might say that we do. Every time we make a big discovery in science, we realize that we know way less than we thought we did, before.

The more we learn, the more we discover that we don’t really understand. Take a look at the following diagram: In it, the area of our knowledge increases, but so does the circumferance of our knowledge, and thus the amount that we still need to learn also gets bigger.

Knowledge Radius

Pretty humbling, huh?

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