On Monday, May 5, 2025 at 1:58:18 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:
On 5/5/2025 5:36 AM, John Clark wrote: Time is not an operator because it is not an observable in the way that position, momentum and energy are, instead it's a parameter, the stage against which things happen. We can say that a particle has a position, a momentum and an energy but a particle doesn't have a time. Mathematically that means that in quantum mechanics position, momentum and energy are all Hermitian operators but time is not. However it remains true that Δt × ΔE ≥ ℏ/2, and of course Δx × Δp ≥ ℏ/2 It remains true if you correctly interpret Δt as the time for the expected value of the energy of the variable E to change by a standard deviation. In other words by using whatever energy E refers to as a clock. That's why it remains true even though there is no t operator in the sense of measuring a universal time. Brent If we're measuring the Casimir force between plates, how can that be a clock? TY, AG -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/08327724-f37d-4f87-b24f-aa5bf8f8d679n%40googlegroups.com.
