system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does the uncertainty principle have real life repurcussions rather than just determining how accurately we can measure the location/momentum of something? Should the particle not still have a definite location, we just can't tell where?
gpt
>Should the particle not still have a definite location, we just can't tell where?

Not really, no.

Something interacting with the particle is essentially performing a measurement on it (because the outcome of the interaction depends on, say, the particle's momentum). So the uncertainty principle must have a real effect on the behaviour of a system.

In fact, in most interpretations of quantum mechanics (including the most widely used, the Copenhagen interpretation), a particle often _doesn't have_ a definite position, momentum, or energy. Rather, it will have some probability of being within a certain volume, or within a certain range of momenta.

Whichever interpretation you use, however, the physics is the same.