Under Construcion ...

THE HEISENBERG PRINCIPLE:

The 'Close Encounters' approach to the Uncertainty Principle

STEP 1

To fully grasp the physical meaning of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (UP) we firstly need to become familiar with THREE key concepts:

1. what is a DISTRIBUTION
2. what is the DISPERSION of a distribution
3. The possibility to REPRESENT a PHYSICAL SYSTEM in DIFFERENT DOMAINS

This goal may be achieved carrying out simple experiments with sounds. The teacher may use sections H1, H1a and H2 to show these concepts through experimental and inquire based activities.

H1. Pure tone in the frequency domain

• H1a. A closer look to the frequency plot
• H2. Conclusion. Distributions and Dispersions
• H2a. Conclusion. Two different domains

SIDE ACTIVITIES

Sounds are composed by a distribution of frequencies. Section H3 and H4 may be considered as side activities to strengthen and extend previously learned concepts. This part may be skipped.

H3. Multiple tones

H4. Creating Sounds

STEP 2

Now we are ready to move towards the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (UP). We will work with the five tones theme from the Steven Spielberg's movie "Close Encounters of the third kind". In the movie the theme is used by humans to establish a communication channel with the alien spaceship. You can listen to the original theme clicking on the video on the right.

For our purposes we have recorded a motif with the same five notes, each one with a different time duration. Listen to the notes clicking on the link on the right.

Analysing the "Close Encounters" musical theme with a free software (Praat) you can explore the mathematical relation between the dispersion in time and frequency of the five tones and move a fundamental step toward the understanding and the discovery of the Uncertainty Principle

With the free software Praat measure the five time dispersions Δt of the five notes and the five frequency dispersions Δf. When you have five data pairs (Δt, Δf), try to find the relation of proportionality between the dispersions in time and the dispersions in frequency.

You can perform the analysis by yourself or follow the three video-tutorials below. A spreadsheet to collect data during your analysis is at your disposal here.