Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking Latent in the Uncertainty Principle

Abstract

Symmetry and symmetry breaking are both sides of the same coin when viewed from the perspective of quantum mechanics. If the quantum state constituting the initial and boundary conditions is given by whatever means, the quantum mechanical development specified by the quantum mechanical equation of motion will preserve the symmetry property latent in the boundary conditions (Ne’eman, 1990). The present scheme of preserving the symmetry property with regard to the quantum state or the quantum mechanical wavefunction would, however, lose its underpinning if the initial preparation of the quantum state constituting the boundary conditions for its subsequent development is not completed for whatever reasons. Although it keeps identifying how the quantum state develops once the initial state is given along with its boundary conditions, quantum mechanics, though legitimate in itself, is intrinsically incompetent in preparing and reasoning the boundary conditions (Kuppers, 1992). A molecule in the atmosphere certainly obeys quantum mechanics, but the boundary conditions applying to the molecule have to be imposed. Quantum mechanics specifies how the quantum state develops under given boundary conditions rather than how the boundary conditions to be imposed upon the quantum state would develop. This unavailability of definite boundary conditions within the framework of quantum mechanics will provide the process of measurement with its unique role (Matsuno, 1990)