[Physics] Why is the word ‘simultaneously’ important in stating Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle

foundationsheisenberg-uncertainty-principlequantum mechanicswavefunction

The Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that a particle cannot have a precise value of its position and conjugate momentum simultaneously.

If these uncertainties are intrinsic properties of a state why is the word 'simultaneously' important? Is this important only for those states which have non-trivial time-dependence? For trivial time-dependence i.e., energy eigenstates $\Delta x$ and $\Delta p_x$ are fixed in time and it appears that one can measure them at separate times. But this is not true for other states. Am I correct?

Best Answer

Just look at the formal version of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: $$ \sigma_x(\psi) \sigma_p(\psi) \geq \hbar/2,$$ where $\sigma_A(\psi) = \sqrt{\langle\psi\vert A^2\vert \psi\rangle - \langle \psi \vert A\rvert \psi\rangle^2}$ is the standard deviation of an operator $A$ for the state $\vert \psi \rangle$.

When we say a state has a "well-defined" or "precise" value of the observable $A$, we mean it is an eigenstate. It is straightforward to check that $\sigma_A(\psi) = 0$ in an eigenstate. So no state can be both an eigenstate of $x$ and of $p$, since that would mean $0\geq \hbar / 2$, which is clearly false.

The "simultaneously" means precisely that: A (time-dependent) state $\psi(t)$ may be an eigenstate of $x$ in one instance, and an eigenstate of $p$ in another, but it is impossible that $\psi(t_0)$ for any fixed $t_0$ is both.

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