The uncertainty principle has been proven quite some time ago and is considered inviolable (no experiment up to today has violated it). On the other hand Heisenberg’s idea that the uncertainty between measurables in quantum system comes from disturbances due to our measurement (the Heisenberg Measurement-Disturbance Relationship) was shown to be mathematically wrong (at least the way Heisenberg postulated it) in 1970.

What this work has done is to show that our naive notion (which unfortunately is still taught in Universities) that quantum uncertainty arises from measurement disturbances (a rather classical way of thinking) is actually wrong. This experiment shows (what theory has already suggested) that you can measure as gentle as you like (much more gentle than what it would take to disturb the system) yet the measurements between measurables whose operators don’t commute will still be uncertain.

So DrDubious this experiment doesn’t show that “finally” they found out how to tare the scales. Quite the opposite, they showed that the last idea of a classical explanation into why the scales are fundamentally “untarable” is actually wrong.

Welcome to quantum mechanics.

B. DiPaolo polarization can be used in exactly the same way as spin. It has 2 states (horizontal and vertical) and it can be measured in three spatial axes, pretty much like spin. What is non commutable is the operators along orthonormal (in space) axes. Meaning that if you know for certain the state (H or V) in one axis (lets say X) and then measure the polarization in any of the other axes (Y or Z) then you will get H or V with 50% chance. So if you start lets say knowing that in 1000 photons in X their state is H and you measure their states in Y you will get about 500 of them being H and about 500 being V.

“However, there were still hurdles to clear as their idea effectively required a small quantum computer, which is difficult to build.”

That quote implies that measuring the disturbance and quantifying it is possible; which is fine. It does not imply that measurements do not affect the system being measured. There are decades of research and application of physics that hinge on the validity of HUP in order to work. But I only state that with a certain level of certainty.

Did you mean: (Google(C))
1) Literal? sorry, I’m EXTREMELY healthy; [you missed an S]
2) Metaphorical? sorry, I’m EXTREMELY amused by my own speakingS; [you missed an S]
3) the/a Mafious? sorry, Gödel is already dead :-( I would gladly oblige though if I wasn’t so young. He sure deserved it for bamboozling so many mathematicians for the best of the century with an, granted, amazing sophism; [you missed the capitalization]
4) digitus tertius? sure, the head of the organization always has something more interesting to say. [you actually wrote it correctly under this semantics, kudos!]

Again, sorry if I missed any meaning, think of me as a Watson of sorts :) Those were my top 4 probabilities and we all realize how amusing Watson can be when calculating those =) so I hope you are laughing too…