Schrodinger's Cat

[hope]

Schrodinger's Cat is a famous hypothetical experiment designed to point out a flaw in the Copenhagen
interpretation of 'superposition' as it applies to Quantum Theory.

A living cat is placed into a steel chamber along with a hammer, a vial of hydrocyanic acid and a very small
amountof radioactive substance. If even a single "Atom" of the radioactive substance decays during the test
period, a relay mechanism wil trip the hammer, which will in turn, break the vial of poisonous gas and
cause the cat to die.

Nobel prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger created this mental experiment in 1935 to point :
out the paradox between what quantum theorists held to be true about the nature and behaviour of matter
on the microscopic level and what the average person observes to be true on the macroscopic level with the
unaided eye.

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which was the prevailing theory at the time, proposed
exist in multiple states that correspond with different possible outcomes and the possibilities, called
superpositions, do not commit to a definite state until they are observed.

Schrodinger's thought experiment was designed to show what the Copenhagen interpretation would look
like if the mathematical terminology used to explain superposition in the microscopic world was replaced
by macroscopic terms the average person could visualise and understand.

In the experiment, the observer cannot know whether or not an "Atom" of the substance has decayed, and
consequently, does not know whether the vial has broken and the cat has been killed. According to quantum
law under the Copenhagen interpretation, the cat will be both dead and alive until someone looks in the box.

In quantum mechanics lingo, the cat's ability to be both alive and dead until it is observed is referred as
'Quantum indeterminacy" or " the observers paradox." The logic behind the observer's paradox is the proven
ability of observation to influence outcomes.

Schrodinger accepted that superposition exists; during his lifetime, scientists were able to prove its existence
by studying 'interfere' in light waves. Schrodinger wondered, however about when the resolution of possibilities
actually occurs. His thought experiment was intended to motivate people to ask themselves if it was logical for
observation to be the trigger for this experience. Yet wouldn't the cat be either dead or alive, even if not observed?

Throughout the years, Schrödinger's cat analogy has been used to illustrate emerging theories of how quantum
mechanics works. In the 'Many Works' interpretation of quantum law, for example, the cat is both alive and
dead. In this interpretation, the observer and the cat simply exist in two realities--one in which the cat is
dead, and one in which the cat is alive.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition ... ingers-cat

[packajos000]

,

[Redbeck]

Quantum mechanics physicists Schrödinger and Heisenberg get pulled over by the traffic police for speeding.

The primary officer asks, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’

Heisenberg replies, ‘No because we knew exactly where we were!’

Finding this response suspicious, the police officer searches the car and asks them to open the boot.

He then returns to the window and says, ‘Did you know you had a dead cat in the boot?

and Schrödinger replies, ‘Well, we couldn't be sure until someone looked.’

They were both promptly arrested.

While the witty intellectual jest above, is designed to encapsulate the work of two distinguished physicists in a basket of humour, thereby making the essence of their theories more accessible to humankind in general, it does in a way parallel this site’s approach to enhancing the learning process for its followers.

Undoubtedly, visitors to the 973-eht-namuh-973.com site and the /forum along with the member community are infinitely more open minded than the traffic policeman in question.

But it is important that the more we know the better equipped we are to effect change, and if absorption of that knowledge can be assisted and accelerated by the provision of:

everyday examples (Schrödinger’s cat has two states: life and death [Are these really definable as two simultaneous but different dimensions, so what is a quantum superposition and how long does it last, when does reality kick in either side?]. Neither state, never mind a dual-state can be irrefutably proven to the average thinking homo sapien unless they have been observed. As in either the cat is still prowling around the box, thus no degradation of radioactive material no shattered flask of poison etc or the animal is flat on its back with legs in the air evidencing the opposite. One could I suppose construe the act of dying as the a quantum superposition, cling to life but fading fast and heading for the swing doors.

and or creative vehicles, such as jokes which say the same thing but with singular brevity of form

then we will use all explanatory mediums at our disposal to spread the learning that will better and benefit the people of the world.



A prime example of visual learning. The life-size cat figure in the garden of Huttenstrasse 9, Zurich, where Erwin Schrödinger lived between 1921–1926. Depending on the light conditions, the cat appears to be either alive or dead.

[Butchyjdam]

Within the framework of quantum mechanics and the Schrodingers Cat experiment, I would say that the act of dowsing to see if the cat is dead or alive is equivalent to opening the box. In other words you are interacting with the experiment by dowsing, and like any other observer intervention, this collapses the state vector and forces the result. So I voted no in the poll.

In the DT article ['Dowsing Today' - December 2004 edition] , the attempt to equate this experiment with a dowsing test to see if a leaf has been removed from a plant remotely does not hold up, as the plant is not in a sealed environment. And there was also a third party involved his wife who interacted with the experiment. It is not an equivalent of the Schrodingers Cat experiment.

Now if the question was, could you dowse to see if the cat was alive or dead after you knew that the box had been opened but not seen by you, then I would say yes, it would be possible to dowse that.

[Redbeck]

Dear Butchyjdam welcome to the Oracle Forum and thanks for a most interesting contribution to this particular daisy chain, dowsing is a fascinating topic and a skill possessed and applied to great effect by one of the many influential ladies in my life.

From what I can deduce, there was a sprinkling of editor's notes [written by a gentleman named Ian Pegler] that were supposed to sidebar the original DT article back in 2004, which never saw the light of day due to space constraints!

He also had the following comment I believe, which makes an excellent point, 'However, which way does the state vector collapse? Cat alive or Cat dead? Or are parallel universes created?'

[Bentjudges]

The moment Schrodingers cat dies can be discovered by dowsingAgree0

[Jerrymek]

No. This is the type of reasoning that gives us ignorant religions in the first place.

Answering a paradox by entering a god into the equation is laziness and where ideology is formed.

Also, I dont think TC is actually getting at what Schrodingers Cat is asking - as the monitor/Geiger counter is enough for an external observation in the first place. The question isnt if, it is when.

[Redbeck]

So Jerrymek old chap, are you saying that the monitoring device/geiger counter is the quantum superposition as it bursts into crackling life, because the cat will not be instantly dead from exposure to radioactivity but shortly thereafter?



On the other hand the environment and its ecosystems are already under acute duress, so the last thing we need are anymore radioactive wastelands in the world we have left.