Today I've been learning about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. In my own words, and from a languages perspective (not from its original Quantum Mechanics context), the principle says that given two variables, position and momentum, the more precisely you try to measure one, the less precisely you can know the other.
In essence, this is about not being able to capture position and movement at the same time. I'm curious about this out of an interest in dynamic systems to account for human activities. Extrapolating this principle to the world of Modern Foreign Languages in HE in the UK where I belong, this could explain why we find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to 'observe the status quo' (Phipps & Gonzalez, 2004, p. xv) in our field because the speed of change is just so fast.
Einstein provided a possible solution to the problem: counting the number of photons leaving a box he used in an experiment. Heisenberg refuted the solution after a sleepless night's worth of work. In our case, counting how many fewer students do languages at university or how many departments close is not a solution either.
Other solutions were provided in the field of Quantum Mechanics: the Many-worlds perspective and the Free will explanation. Not knowing anything about this area of science, I cannot comment on their validity, but some of the arguments made resonate with our issues in the world of language education. From the Many-worlds perspective, the idea is that one world does not know what another world does, despite proximity or belonging to a common overarching structure. This would explain the difficulties different language departments sometimes have when asked to work together as one. The Free will point is that particles, and for that matter teachers, support staff and students, do what they like and it is difficult to account for this. Indeed.
PS Incidentally, go and see Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle at the Whyndham's Theatre in London if interested in the combination of the principle with romance.
Uncertainty
Today I've been learning about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. In my own words, and from a languages perspective (not from its original Quantum Mechanics context), the principle says that given two variables, position and momentum, the more precisely you try to measure one, the less precisely you can know the other.
In essence, this is about not being able to capture position and movement at the same time. I'm curious about this out of an interest in dynamic systems to account for human activities. Extrapolating this principle to the world of Modern Foreign Languages in HE in the UK where I belong, this could explain why we find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to 'observe the status quo' (Phipps & Gonzalez, 2004, p. xv) in our field because the speed of change is just so fast.
Einstein provided a possible solution to the problem: counting the number of photons leaving a box he used in an experiment. Heisenberg refuted the solution after a sleepless night's worth of work. In our case, counting how many fewer students do languages at university or how many departments close is not a solution either.
Other solutions were provided in the field of Quantum Mechanics: the Many-worlds perspective and the Free will explanation. Not knowing anything about this area of science, I cannot comment on their validity, but some of the arguments made resonate with our issues in the world of language education. From the Many-worlds perspective, the idea is that one world does not know what another world does, despite proximity or belonging to a common overarching structure. This would explain the difficulties different language departments sometimes have when asked to work together as one. The Free will point is that particles, and for that matter teachers, support staff and students, do what they like and it is difficult to account for this. Indeed.
PS Incidentally, go and see Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle at the Whyndham's Theatre in London if interested in the combination of the principle with romance.