Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Minimum length from quantum mechanics and classical general relativity.

Xavier Calmet1, Michael Graesser, Stephen D H Hsu

  • 1California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. calmet@theory.caltech.edu

Physical Review Letters
|December 17, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The Black Hole Information Problem.

Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)·2025
Same author

Efficient blockLASSO for polygenic scores with applications to all of us and UK Biobank.

BMC genomics·2025
Same author

Polygenic height prediction for the Han Chinese in Taiwan.

NPJ genomic medicine·2025
Same author

Quo Vadis Particula Physica?

Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)·2024
Same author

Biobank-scale methods and projections for sparse polygenic prediction from machine learning.

Scientific reports·2023
Same author

Polygenic Health Index, General Health, and Pleiotropy: Sibling Analysis and Disease Risk Reduction.

Scientific reports·2022

Quantum mechanics and general relativity impose fundamental limits on position measurements. Experiments cannot achieve precision beyond the Planck length, suggesting a minimum uncertainty ball for all measurements.

Area of Science:

  • Physics
  • Quantum Mechanics
  • General Relativity
  • Metrology

Background:

  • Accurate position measurements are crucial in various scientific fields.
  • Existing measurement techniques face limitations from quantum mechanics and general relativity.
  • The Planck length (lP) represents a fundamental scale in physics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To derive fundamental limits on position measurements based on quantum mechanics and classical general relativity.
  • To investigate if interferometers, despite their high precision, are subject to these fundamental limits.
  • To establish a device-independent limit for position measurement accuracy.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical derivation of fundamental limits.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analysis of primitive probes and targets in measurement experiments.
  • Study of interferometers, including examples like LIGO, to assess their precision limits.

    • Main Results:

    • Any experimental probe or target must exceed the Planck length (lP).
    • A minimum uncertainty ball of Planck size is suggested for all position measurements.
    • Interferometers, even those with precision finer than their components, have a fundamental accuracy limit of approximately lP.

    Conclusions:

    • Fundamental limits on position measurement accuracy exist, rooted in quantum mechanics and general relativity.
    • These limits are independent of the specific experimental device used.
    • The Planck length sets a universal scale for the ultimate precision of position measurements.