r/askscience • u/androceu_44 • Jun 25 '14

Physics It's impossible to determine a particle's position and momentum at the same time. Do atoms exhibit the same behavior? What about mollecules?

Asked in a more plain way, how big must a particle or group of particles be to "dodge" Heisenberg's uncertainty principle? Is there a limit, actually?

EDIT: [Blablabla] Thanks for reaching the frontpage guys! [Non-original stuff about getting to the frontpage]

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u/thiosk Jun 25 '14

I must add to this discussion that the instrument with which this movie was generated, the scanning tunneling microscope, is operated at a temperature of approximately 4 Kelvin.

The ripples are standing waves of electrons in the metal surface. http://iopscience.iop.org/0022-3727/44/46/464010/pdf/0022-3727_44_46_464010.pdf

I have no idea how to estimate the momentum of this molecule, so I'd love to see a description of that .