The Heisenburg uncertainty principle is a matter of not having the tools to measure? If that's what you intended to say, I think you don't understand the issues in question... What does some parameters being defined or not have to do with any of this this argument?
Let me qualify the last remark... I can envision a situation where a parameter is not defined, without resorting to randomness as an explanation.
OK, now I really don't understand. How does this address the question: "If the universe is utterly deterministic, why isn't anything that's made of stuff composed of even smaller stuff, infinitely?" What difference does it make if said stuff has, or doesn't, "defined" parameters.
When you are dealing with waves, it really is misleading to say the wave is here or the wave is there. The truth is that the wave is everywhere. It's just a question of what the displacement is at that particular point. You might be able to detect a certain displacement, but not a smaller one. But that doesn't mean that the wave is where you can detect it, and not where you can't.
As a zen-like philosophical conjecture which, in fact, agrees with some interpretations of quantum physics, I can go along with the notion that waves are just a little bit everywhere. As a useful assumption of physics, I have to pretty much go along with the notion that, for all practical purposes, photons, like bucky balls are pretty much where I detect them to be.
Are you going to describe 60-atom bucky balls as purely a wave phenomenon so you can avoid acknowledging the quantum nature of light?
If a particle is a wave, then an atom is simply a group of waves stuck together. It really doesn't matter whether it's 60, or a mass the size of the earth. I don't know why you think that denies the quantum nature of light, though.
Because the bucky balls, like the photons, don't go thru both slits, they go thru one slit or the other.
In my view, a particle is a buckling of the field, while light is simply a displacement not rising to the level of a buckling. Since a particle involves a buckling, it is more like a standing wave that fills all space, than it is like a moving wave. Clearly a particle can move, but motion is not essential to its existence.
Whether it's light or a particle you're talking about though, it makes sense that there would be points at which the displacement was much greater than at other points, particularly if you are talking about a field that is partially discontinuous at the finest level, like a three-dimensional matrix of force lines, which are connected only at their points of intersection. Obviously, the place where the displacement is greatest is most likely to be at the interval between those intersections, and so the waves are going to appear to be very focused on that interval, and thus the particle nature.
Well, I'm not quite sure where you think you are in disagreement with quantum physicists, but here's your problem, in my opinion: the two slit experiment cannot be dragged back into sensible shape with "elastic" determinism. The light, or the buckyballs go thru one slit or the other, but definitely not both. If your theory held water, the itty bitty bit of wave that went thru the other slit would cause an itty bitty bit of diffraction. That ain't the case. The two slit experiment produces symmetric diffraction--as if two stones of the same size had been dropped in a pond. It's a genuine amazing paradox, not a trick with mirrors you can lawyer into deterministic phenomenon by shear force of confidence. That's why it violates Identity: one particle is, in a very substantial sense, availing itself of distinctly, visibly separated slits, at the same time. And that's why it needs a better explanation than the deterministic one you are touting.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle was originally very much like not having the tools to measure. If you measured with the tools you have, it changes, and you can't get an accurate measurement. I say you don't have the tools to measure because there are no tools you can measure with that won't in some way affect the outcome of the measurement, and that was the whole point of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Of course, quantum physics took it one step further, and said that it's not merely that you can't measure accurately, it's actually that the parameter you are trying to measure is not defined until you measure it. That's the part Einstein had a problem with, and it's the part I have a problem with.
I'll grant you that a buckyball is different from a single particle, and might be expected to behave differently in a two slit experiment. A single particle has a field that possesses a given flux. The particles stick together because the flux of their fields is complementary. In other words, their fields become more neutral when you put them together. With a larger group of particles, you are dealing with a more neutral field, and a larger mass. At some degree of greater size, the field that you are dealing with is only a gravitaional field, and that of course is very neutral and very weak. So if it goes thru a two slit apparatus, the surrounding field (which I regard as part of the wave) is not going to have much impact on the diffraction of the particles. In the case of a single particle, there is more flux per unit of mass, so you can expect different behavior.
I don't know that you can say that a photon goes only thru one slit or the other. You might be able to say that the detectible part of the photon goes thru one slit or the other. But that does not necessarily mean that there is not a part of the wave front that also goes thru the other slit and alters the path of the photon.
Well, it's been an interesting discussion. I don't think you're going to persuade me, nor am I going to persuade you. Just out of curiosity, are you a physicist, or perhaps an engineer?