put another way, i picked up everything i know about politics at the library or at wikipedia. it's substantial, obviously. but my degree is a b. mathematics.
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aug 1, 2014
he's not really right, here.
the uncertainty principle is one of those things that's open to a few different interpretations. the standard one is that it's a law of physics, and there's even a mathematical proof for it. what he's saying is in that context, and if you're working in that context it would indeed be impossible - in that context.
but, there are two other interpretations of the uncertainty principle. as neither are demonstrably wrong, it's not rigorously correct to conclude that transportation is impossible due to the uncertainty principle.
the basic idea is that measuring the position necessarily changes the velocity, and vice versa, and there's nothing that can be done about that. but, is that a law of physics or a statement about our tools? well, the answer you're going to hear from a lot of people is actually that it's a law of physics that it's a statement about the tools. i'm not arrogant enough to state that as an irresolvable fact. i see no reason, to write this off, a priori, from any underlying principles. i have to admit i'm a little skeptical, though, as i couldn't imagine how. see, that's the real reason physicists hold to this. the mathematical proof is really just a convenient way to convert an intuitive assumption into something that certain types of philosophers can't really argue with.
the second alternate interpretation of the uncertainty principle is that it is a misnomer - it should actually be called the certainty principle. this is kind of more where i'm at. basically, it's a logical fallacy to deduce that unpredictability implies actual randomness. it certainly implies perceived randomness, but that perception could very well be an illusion deriving from the inability to measure. you can think of it like this: the movement of the planets would have seemed random before newton. you could have come up with probabilistic laws to govern their motion, and mostly got it right. that doesn't mean gravity didn't exist, it just meant it wasn't understood. you don't necessarily have to get to a hidden variable theory from this. the behaviour might neither be (locally) causal nor deterministic. this is a perfectly valid way to interpret the uncertainty principle: it might be that certain things happen in ways that are not predictable and can never be modified but are not actually random, but arise from non-understood causes. that is, the inability to predict the behaviour may actually merely demonstrate that there are causal things in front of us that we cannot alter.
i usually bring up this argument in the context of a fatalist v. undetermined universe, as the uncertainty principle is sometimes presented as an argument for the latter. however, it really provides no information in either direction, as it can be interpreted just as strongly for an argument in either direction. those who wish to argue the future does not exist will say you can't predict the path, it happens randomly. but we can't prove this beyond our perception. we can just as easily say that the seeming fact that you can't predict the path also means you can't alter it, and all phenomenon is the result of a first cause.
if the perceived randomness is merely an illusion, the argument against teleportation also collapses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD7X9vGMX0k