Why not an uncertainty principle?

It may seem strange that there are no fundamental physical principle for quantum physics that is associated with uncertainty among those that I have proposed recently. What would be the reason? Since we refer to it as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it should qualify as one of the fundamental principles of quantum physics, right? Well, that is just it. Although it qualifies as being a principle, it is not fundamental.

It may help to consider how these concepts developed. At first, quantum mechanics was introduced as an improvement of classical mechanics. Therefore, quantities like position and momentum played an important role.

A prime example of a system in classical mechanics is the harmonic oscillator. Think of a metal ball hanging from a spring. Being pulled down and let go, the ball will start oscillating, moving periodically up and down. This behavior is classically described in terms of a Hamiltonian that contains the position and momentum of the metal ball.

In the quantum version of this system, the momentum is replaced by the wave vector times the Planck constant. But position and the wave vector are conjugate Fourier variables. That is the origin of the uncertainty. Moreover, it also leads to non-commutation when position and momentum are represented as operators. The sum and difference of these two operators behave as lowering and raising operators for quanta of energy in the system. The one reduces the energy in discrete steps and the other increases it in discrete steps.

It was then found that quantum mechanics can also be used to improve classical field theory. But there are several differences. Oscillations in fields are not represented as displacements in position that is exchange into momentum. Instead, their oscillations manifest in terms of the field strength. So, to develop a quantum theory of fields, one would start with the lowering and raising operators, which are now called creation and annihilation operators or ladder operators. Their sum and difference produce a pair of operators that are analogues to the position and momentum operators for the harmonic oscillator. In this context, these are called quadrature operators. They portray the same qualitative behavior as the momentum and position operators. They represent conjugate Fourier variables and therefore again produce an uncertainty and non-commutation. The full development of quantum field theory is far more involved then what I described here, but I only focused on the origin of the uncertainty in this context here.

So, in summary, uncertainty emerges as an inevitable consequence of the Fourier relationship between conjugate variables. In the case of mechanical systems, these conjugate variables come about because of the quantum relationship between momentum and wave vector. In the case of fields, these conjugate variables comes from the ladder operators, leading to analogues properties as found for the formal description of the harmonic oscillator. Hence, uncertainty is not a fundamental property in quantum physics.