Sommerfeld uncertainty principle

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
1 reply · 2K views
arivero
Gold Member
Messages
3,500
Reaction score
204
Ok, I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_genealogy_of_theoretical_physicists#Arnold_Sommerfeld that Heisenberg had studied under Arnold Sommerfeld, but I have just now learned that Sommerfeld proposed a sort of uncertainty principle in the first Solvay meeting.

That was 1911.

It seems that he proposed that the time needed to transfer a quantity of energy was inversely proportional to this quantity, and perhaps that the space needed to transfer some momentum was inversely proportional to this momentum. IE:

[tex] \Delta t = { h \over \Delta E}[/tex]

and perhaps

[tex] \Delta x = { h \over \Delta p}[/tex]

I wonder if there was some extension of this idea before coming to Heisenberg himself (and his principle). After all, from 1911 to 1927 there is some time lag. Also, I wonder how compatible is this idea with the later developed Quantum Mechanics.

Is there some book naming explicitly this formulation?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Let me add, suppose that for instance some Banking System imposes a "corralito" following the above rule, that the transfer of a quantity $ of money must be delayed always by a time proportional to 1/log($) the inverse of the number of ceros of the quantity to be transferred. Would we get then a "quantum economy"? It seems strange because there is not probability nor measure problem here.