User:Boris Tsirelson/Sandbox1: Difference between revisions

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Well, this is an interesting... what? physics, not chemistry.
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The [[Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle|Heisenberg uncertainty principle]] for a particle does not allow a state in which the particle is simultaneously at a definite location and has also a definite momentum. Instead the particle has a range of momentum and spread in location attributable to quantum fluctuations.


Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not a chemist, nor a physicist; thus I am not entitled to draw the border between chemistry and physics. However, all this exchange about mass only convinces me that the problem, what is mass, and what has mass, is deeply physical, far not chemical. The same can be said about the problem, what is space and what does it mean, to occupy space. And therefore the definition that says "occupies space and has mass", be it apt or not, is anyway inappropriate for chemistry. For "matter (physics)" — maybe; for "matter (chemistry)" — not at all.
An uncertainty principle applies to most of quantum mechanical operators that do not commute (specifically, to every pair of operators whose commutator is a non-zero scalar operator).
 
Naively or not, I still believe that chemistry is about '''regrouping atoms in molecules'''. Thus, atoms and molecules are directly relevant; and everything else is relevant as far as it influences the process of regrouping atoms in molecules. Accordingly, the relevance of the photon mass (if any) to chemistry is as small as this very mass is.

Latest revision as of 02:25, 22 November 2023


The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.


The Heisenberg uncertainty principle for a particle does not allow a state in which the particle is simultaneously at a definite location and has also a definite momentum. Instead the particle has a range of momentum and spread in location attributable to quantum fluctuations.

An uncertainty principle applies to most of quantum mechanical operators that do not commute (specifically, to every pair of operators whose commutator is a non-zero scalar operator).

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