Heisenberg's Uncertainty What?

I like quantum physics. I'm not a physics major, and I don't know any of the math involved, but that hasn't stopped me so far from learning about the concepts. I find the ideas to be fascinating looks into the way our universe operates. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle  was brought up in class as a marker in the transition from classical, Newtonian physics to the modern physics we love and confuse people with today.

Don't give up! I know many people will want to because I said things like Heisenberg and quantum. But you can do this, and it's good food for thought. Also it's a handy way to impress dates. (Okay, so that last part isn't true. Physicists aren't known for their love lives.)

This is even going to relate to class by the time I'm through. Here's a cool youtube video to explain Heisenberg's uncertainty principle:

So essentially, science proved a limit to what science can do. We can know an electron's position and we can know its momentum, but not both at the same time. And the more we know of one, the less we can be certain about the other.
In my previous blog post I wrote about a shift from a modern to a postmodern attitude in the way people interact with computers. They have changed from machines we command, to simulated worlds we explore and utilize without really knowing what's going on inside them.

This breakthrough by Heisenberg is a tremendous shift in thought for science.Since the 1600s science had been finding more and more order in the world, making it more predictable. Quantum physics, on the other hand, says, it's a crazy, crazy world down there among the atoms.

It makes me wonder about the larger world. Is there more unpredictability in the mechanics of nature an society than we usually think? How about the Internet? If we can recognize it, we actually gain more mastery over the world than if we pretend to understand things when we actually do not.

What about postmodern politics, could that be a step forward? We live in a political climate in which parties are polarized, each certain that their philosophy makes order out of the U.S. economy. The economy seems pretty chaotic and unpredictable to me sometimes. How can they be so sure they understand it?

I'm not advocating giving up the attempt to manage the economy well. To me postmodernism is about finding strength in recognizing what you don't know or can't know, and doing the best you can under the circumstances.