this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Let's say the quantum uncertainty which is currently quite small and doesn't affect our life on macroscopic scale suddenly increased. Magically we are still living in this weird rule of physics. How would we see daily stuff? like how would I see a ball rolling in my sight?

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[–] bool@lemm.ee 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Real life quantum physicist here. When you say you want the uncertainty principle to be bigger, what you are really saying is you want Planck’s constant to be a bigger number. This has much bigger consequences than you might expect, because if nothing else about the universe changes (for example Coulomb’s constant) then the energy levels of atomic transitions all get out of whack, you break chemistry and chemical bonding, and there is no such thing as a basketball because there are no such thing as rubber molecules.

[–] shapis@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

A good way of exposing this idea to people is showing them the step by step of how to get the particle in the box energy equation and then generalizing it for 3d.

It becomes really obvious the issues that happen when you have degenerate states.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

So basically, we would just skip straight to the heat death of the universe, right?

[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

Magically we are still living in this weird rule of physics.

That's the problem, you wouldn't be living.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 8 points 1 year ago

With even a small increase in uncertainty in electron position, electricity would start to behave differently. Everything electronic, which depends on electron flow through very tiny conductors, would become unreliable as the electron flow would be unpredictable. Even basic light bulbs probably wouldn't work.

Chemistry is the exchange of electrons between atoms. All molecular bonds happen through the exchange of electrons from one atom to another... so an increase in uncertainty would result in the bonds breaking down. Molecules would break apart, every material you think of as solid would disintegrate into its base atoms.

So, your rolling ball would cease to be a cohesive ball, and the surface it is rolling on would also cease to be.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

We already have that. They're called toddlers.