Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle Explained

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle tells us that it is impossible to simultaneously measure the position and momentum of a particle with infinite precision. In our everyday lives we virtually never come up against this limit, hence why it seems peculiar. In this experiment a laser is shone through a narrow slit onto a screen. As the slit is made narrower, the spot on the screen also becomes narrower. But at a certain point, the spot starts becoming wider. This is because the photons of light have been