International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

In relation to the complementarity situation in micro-physics stating the simultaneous but incompatible (in the classical physics sense) ondulatory or corpuscular aspects of microphysical entities (radiations-electrons), HEISENBERG "… showed how a high precision in the determination of one property x (e.g. position) implies a low precision in the determination of a complementary or incompatible property p. (e.g., momentum)

m. Δx. Δp ≥ h/4p

"m is the mass of the particle. Δx is here the uncertainty in the determination of x., h is PLANCK's constant. The product Δx.Δp determines a volume in phase space. Hence, the principle (of indeterminacy) can be interpreted as saying that no measurement, however precise, can distinguish a part of phase space smaller than the volume" (F. HEYLIGHEN, 1990b, p.479).

The indeterminacy relation, is frequently presented as the "uncertainty principle" (even by HEISENBERG himself!), which allows for metaphorical "psychologized" interpretations that should be carefully scrutinized.

K. BOULDING considers that "Physical systems in the small range, biological systems in the middle range, and social systems throughout their whole range are of …probabilistic nature, and have… Heisenberg principle built right into them. …For Heisenberg systems where information and the observer are of the same order of the magnitude of the system, and for the closely related probabilistic systems, the method of general systems is a necessity" (1964, p.35).

Recently, D. DUBOIS emitted the hypothesis that "As velocity is the temporal derivative of a particle's position, if the particle follows a fractal, i.e. broken, trajectory, it is impossible to know its precise velocity when well localized. The alternative should be considering space-time as of fractal nature, in which case it would not be continuous, but discrete" (1990, p.109).

In short, there is no easy way out of indeterminacy.