Deciphering the hazy Uncertainty Principle

Deciphering the hazy Uncertainty Principle - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience - msnbc.com:

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One of the most often quoted, yet least understood, tenets of physics is the uncertainty principle.

Formulated by German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the rule states that the more precisely you measure a particle's position, the less precisely you will be able to determine its momentum, and vice versa.

The principle is often invoked outside the realm of physics to describe how the act of observing something changes the thing being observed, or to point out that there's a limit to how well we can ever really understand the universe.