The Hindenburg Uncertainty Principle: Quantum Physics and Dangers Inherent in Airline Scheduling

Since airline deregulation in the 1970s, airline companies are measured, judged, and compared by several criteria.  By convention, a top-rated airline will demonstrate superior performance in terms of a high percentage of flights arriving or departing at published times, a low number of complaints filed about lost or misplaced luggage, and a reduced tendency to overbook flights and deny passenger boarding.  So to remain competitive, companies strive continuously to improve these performance metrics, the data collated by the government and communicated to consumers monthly in the popular and trade press.  Carriers with high ratings make frequent mention about their ranking in advertisements.

This theorist strongly suggests the airlines’ announced goals, 100% on-time and 0% baggage complaints, are inherently dangerous and my quantum mechanical analyses bear this out.  In brief, an encompassing objective of knowing with complete certainty an airplane’s or bag’s location sacrifices equally crucial information as to the plane’s, the passengers’, and their bags’ speed and direction.  This reality is governed by the Hindenberg Uncertainty Principle, named for history’s most familiar air disaster, recognizing the previously unexpounded idea that German precision itself probably contributed to the airship’s destruction.

Everyone who flies regularly is intuitively aware of the importance of probability and uncertainty in air travel.  After all, your flight probably will be late; your bags will probably be lost and the agent will be uncertain as to their location. 

The cardinal rule of the Hindenberg Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to simultaneously quantify specific pairs of properties, for example, location and momentum (a vector comprising speed and direction) with precision sufficient to prevent an uncertainty.  Similar inverse relationships are specified in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, an obscure and esoteric theory with relatively minor impact on everyday life.

But with either Principle, if q = location and p = momentum, the quantum mathematics showing pq does not equal qp, also says we cannot be sure of what p and q are simultaneously;  according to that guy Heisenberg, ∂p x ∂q is always greater than h (Planck’s Constant) divided by 2π.  Therefore if we know the location of something very precisely, the less certain we can be as to its future speed and direction.  And once something’s moving in a predetermined vector, we can no longer know where the thing actually is located.

So it follows invariably that when 100% on-time departure is achieved, the accuracy and certainty of its next arrival, in time or space, drop to values approaching zero.  Likewise, and more critically, the same quantum mechanics says that if an airline knows exactly where a specific plane is located while in flight, they can’t know with equal certainty in which direction the plane is flying, or how fast.

But the situation is much more dangerous than that and if this doesn’t frighten you, consider any flight holistically.  The departure of any flight is only a single event in a sequence beginning when you phone your travel agency and ending when your lost luggage is located two days late in Lima, Peru.

Heisenberg and theorists who followed, recognized how reality comprises a complex matrix of ps and qs (remember grandma telling you to “mind your ps and qs).

So as you try to determine with perfect certainty the location of your tickets, your parked car, your luggage, and so forth, you lose information as to their relative movements and increase the probability that something or someone is going rapidly in the wrong direction.  And in theory, each of these items is poised to shoot off in different directions once released from p=0.

It follows that regarding air travel, the answer is apparently a balance:  the system must surrender certainty and precision in order for passengers and luggage to arrive safely, near their desired destination, around the correct time, with most of their luggage.

According to the Hindenberg Uncertainty Principle, the safest air carriers therefore are those with:  (1) the worst on-time records, (2) the most confusion about overbooking and seat assignments, and (3) the least concern about the location of passenger luggage (measured as the inverse of lost bags per 1000 passengers).

Indeed, matrix theory further suggests that a carrier who knows for certain that a particular passenger is on a particular flight, in his/her assigned seat, with checked bags onboard, is probably taking totally unwarranted risks.  So cool it, dudes!

Incorporating the latest published government data, my quantum mechanical treatment suggests safety ratings for the major carriers, noted in Table 1.

Table 1

carrier	On-time (%)	Lost bag/1000  passengers	Uncertainty factor	Safety Rating
Southwest	86.6	3.07	282	4
American	84.0	3.75	241	3
United	85.0	3.53	224	2
Delta	77.7	6.01	129	1
Continental	79.9	2.55	313	5

Some will argue with this expostulation, and note that uncertainty relationships apply only for tiny, relativistic particles like electrons.  However, this investigator would hope that when air traffic control and passenger safety are at issue, recognition of every set of variables effecting key flight information remains of paramount importance.

Everyday realities of air travel we’ve all experienced therefore evidence the applicability of uncertainty theory to commercial air travel.  In this light, I note further phenomena for investigation:

(1)  Similar probabilistic treatments, reexamined in light of recent advances in chaos theory, clearly demonstrate how at random point in time, every airplane and air passenger, or at least every piece of luggage, will likely end up in a single spot at the same moment.  This investigator believes this conjunction has already occurred several times in the known universe, but some underlying, as yet unexplained variable increases its probability during peak travel periods on earth.  I can only speculate the seeming certainty of conjunction on holidays is related to velocity:  when everyone is in a hurry, the history of events is compressed (see Einstein-Lorentz’s Theory of the Space Time Continuum), and the frequency of conjunction increases (Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, Thanksgiving Eve, 1983; Chicago O’Hare Airport, Christmas, 1989).

(2) The availability and pricing of discounted seats for any given date and destination is quite obviously another associated process that is totally random, and certainly is wholly inexplicable.  At this time, science offers no rationale.

(3) Calculation of the phenomenal energies required to “uncouple” luggage and passengers will be explored in other forums, but initial calculations suggest this energy expense contributes to the high cost of air travel.  If this energy could be recovered and harnessed, global warming could be reduced significantly.

(Data updated and revised 1/18/2009)