Recently there has been a much contention about if the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has anything to do with the Vedantic thought.
It is very obvious to me that most of the folks do not understand either of the concepts and because of their Anglo-Saxon based educational biases, jump to guns in attacking such statements made by Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi. This statement he made is based on a supposedly historical fact that Vivekananda and Heisenberg met and discussed things.
First let us understand the Uncertainty Principle. It goes back to stating that the Position (displacement or distance) and Momentum (function of velocity or first time derivative of displacement or distance) cannot be measured with accuracy at the same time, and the order of approximation is related to Planck Constant. The difference of the Position x Momentum - Momentum x Position ~ Planck Constant/2 Pi. The delta of the two com-mutating products is related to the Quantum Momentum Operator having the Planck Constant and 2 comes from two products splitting the Quanta h difference. Mathematically this is a theorem as the Frequency Transforms of Displacement and Velocity are mirror of each other in time vs frequency domains. So a Spike in Time looks like a Flat Line in Frequency and vice-versa. So we cannot have the Displacement and Velocity as Spike Vectors (or Flat-Line Vectors) in Time-Domain (or Frequency Domain). So this has a mathematical basis.
Why was this model invented. Because the very act of applying one operator to do an observation changed the observed! This was seen in the Dual Photon and Electron Particle-Wave Observations. When no one was observing, in the Dual Slit Experiment, the Photon and Electron behaved like Waves, and when a measuring device was put next to one slit, the Wave collapsed to Particle Behavior! And similarly the Magnetic Spin was observed to collapse to Up and Down components in Stern–Gerlach experiment.
These experiments failed to account for the Vacuum of Space or Space connecting the observing device and the observed! Everything in Nature is not discrete but continuous. Thanks to MM Experiment, the Ether in Empty Space was ruled out, but now experiments like Static and Dynamic Casimir effects point to this Ether or Dark Energy. So at microscopic experiments, this "connection" between the measuring device and the measured entity would have some bearing. In other words, there is no free observation in Quantum Scales!
Now in Vedenta, the Brahman is explained as Empty Space before the Pot or after the Pot. Or it is explained as the Waves as well as the Ocean. Now the root "brah" means to expand, and it connected with the words like "breast" and "bra" in IE Languages. The Big Bang of Space is very much captured in the essence of Brahman which is constantly expanding as Brahman is Present Participle. So when the inquiry comes on "Who am I?", one has to start regressing oneself core by core, like an onion rings, to one's core, and that is the Self, or Individual Soul or part of Super Soul or Brahman. In scriptures they say, the Observed Object cannot be the Self as the Observer Subject is itself the Self! So Self cannot observe Self! Basically it draws the connection of the Self as the Infinite Brahman, and one co-ordinate in Brahman Space cannot accurate observe the another co-ordinate of Brahman Space accurately. Basically with our Senses we cannot ever observe Brahman (accurately)!
So in this sense the two theories are having parallels. So I am hoping that Vivekananda may have explained the Brahman aspect to Heisenberg and he may have been motivated to use this new metaphor to understand the Duality of Particle and Electron in QM and other QM observations!
