Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
In physics, a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle (e.g. electron or quark), such as position and momentum, can be known.
EverydayConcepts.io
Origin
Werner Heisenberg formulated the principle in February–March 1927 while working as a lecturer at Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen — Bohr was on a skiing vacation when Heisenberg had the key insight. He published the result in Zeitschrift für Physik that year, deriving it from the non-commutative algebra of matrix mechanics he had co-developed with Max Born and Pascual Jordan in 1925. Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932.
Updated February 22, 2026