Why, it’s Schrödinger’s cat in the flesh
First, for those who are not familiar with Schrödinger’s cat:
In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead, while it is unobserved in a closed box, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. This thought experiment was devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 in a discussion with Albert Einstein to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. …
Although originally a critique on the Copenhagen interpretation, Schrödinger’s seemingly paradoxical thought experiment became part of the foundation of quantum mechanics.
Although I initially thought it was a joke, this seems to be a true story. And it’s got the closed box, and the dead-or-alive unknown:
A Utah couple accidentally shipped their pet cat in an Amazon return package, trapping it in the box without food or water for six days.
The cat, named Galena, was eventually discovered safe and well in California, Utah’s KSL-TV was the first to report. …
Carrie Clark, one of the cat’s owners, noticed the pet had gone missing on April 10, the outlet reported.
For nearly a week, Clark, along with family and friends, searched the couple’s house and neighborhood and plastered missing posters around town hoping to locate the cat, KSL-TV reported. …
Clark then received a text notifying her that Galena’s microchip had been scanned, and later that day, she received a call from a veterinarian in California. …
The vet told Clark the cat was found inside an Amazon return package, alongside five pairs of steel-toed work boots.
Alive.
It could happen to anyone, right? Maybe even Kristi Noem.
I think that Galena has used up more than one of her nine lives on that journey.
Of course: https://youtu.be/cKx7v-uHDRQ?si=cGWnamV28m-9qKln
I still don’t understand the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment.
That theory seems dubious
IrishOtter:
You have plenty of company there.
“Schrödinger’s Cat is a famous thought experiment that demonstrates the idea in quantum physics that tiny particles can be in two states at once until they’re observed. It asks you to imagine a cat in a box with a mechanism that might kill it. Until you look inside, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time.” [my emphasis]
NO. Until you look inside, whether the cat is alive or dead is simply unknown. The action of opening the box, so as to see the cat may or may not randomly activate the killing mechanism but that doesn’t confer upon the cat the attribute of simultaneously being both alive and dead.
“Schrödinger’s Cat” fails as a thought experiment because it is inapplicable to the phenomenon.
Quantum mechanics postulates that the action of observing is what determines the direction of the particle’s spin. That simply states that the particle has the potential to spin in either direction and that the kinetic action of observation activates the spin.
But it cannot simultaneously spin in both directions because that would violate the fundamental operative laws that govern the universe. So if two observers simultaneously viewed the particle, it could not simultaneously spin in both directions. Regardless of how “strange” their behavior, quantum particles operate within the physical universe.
Schrödinger and Einstein were brilliant mathematicians. And at least in this case, entirely lacking in common sense. Mathematicians ideate, physicists “worth their ‘salt'” conduct real world tests that strive to confirm whether ‘the idea’* has any actual validity. *the mathematical hypothesis/theory
“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” George Orwell
Idol worship, the foundational factor in “settled science” is a preventative to clarity.
Even if two people are observing its still spinning in one direction
Wait! Who returns FIVE pairs of steel-toed work boots to Amazon? This whole thing sounds fishy to me. Shrödinger does too.
Furthermore why would it spin in another direction
Geoffrey Britain:
No, Schrodinger was not lacking in common sense, and he wasn’t saying what you think he’s saying. His thought experiment is often misunderstood, however.
Here’s a better explanation.
Seems unlikely. I’m not buying it. The whole story is fishy. An employee found the cat in the warehouse-it wasn’t noticed when the return box was opened.
Re: Schrodinger’s Cat
neo:
Good link on your additional explainer:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/06/26/ask-ethan-what-are-we-getting-wrong-about-schrodingers-cat/
Yes, start with the Double-Slit Experiment:
_________________________________
The double-slit experiment (and its variations) has become a classic for its clarity in expressing the central puzzles of quantum mechanics. Because it demonstrates the fundamental limitation of the ability of the observer to predict experimental results, Richard Feynman called it “a phenomenon which is impossible […] to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery [of quantum mechanics].”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment
_________________________________
Elsewhere Feynman directed anyone confused about quantum paradoxes to review the Double-Slit Experiment. It’s so simple, yet unintuitive and irrefutable.
I revisit it every several years just to keep it clear in my mind. Really, stuff like Schrodinger’s Cat is a piece of cake once you’ve got the Double-Slit in your back pocket.
Honk if you enjoy mixed metaphors. 🙂
We know Schrödinger’s cat is alive because he ate Flaubert’s parrot.
And it’s good that someone so obsessed with dead cats in boxes turned out to be a physicist, rather than a serial killer.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been so good if he’d actually made an atomic bomb for Hitler.
Here is a humorous story of Schrödinger’s cat.
https://www.randombio.com/schrodingers-cat.html
Hmm
https://tinyurl.com/vzwuvzsh
Okay, I’ve read up on the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment. I think I understand it now. I also think it’s preposterous. So, maybe I don’t understand it. C’est la vie.
Miguel:
Very interesting article. Thanks for posting.
So Huxley (@8:32pm) tells us that we can have our cake and sit on it too…..
Beep, beep.
OK, OK, but what about Heisenberg’s Cat?
A certain famous physicist retells the story of Schroedinger’s Cat with the cat being put to sleep by sedative gas rather than killed, because he abhors talking about killing animals.
I have a theory about this. My theory is that this man’s wife is very, very, good in bed!
What if the Double-Slit experiment really shows that we are wrong about photons? Do we know for certain that single photons can’t be split?
neo’s Forbes article in the comments makes this following point, if you read it carefully. But Schrodinger’s original point in the cat thought experiment, is that it seems absurd. He didn’t like the theory that it incorporates and was trying to say, “See, the theory doesn’t make any sense.” It was intended to be a demonstration of fallacy.
As Wikipedia puts it:
According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead until the state has been observed. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-live cats as a serious possibility; on the contrary, he intended the example to illustrate the absurdity of the existing view of quantum mechanics, and thus he was employing reductio ad absurdum.
The only wave that collapses is the wave representing your knowledge, not the physical reality.
If a tree falls in the forest it makes a sound, whether or not you’re there to hear it.
But if the tree falls on
the Cat with a Hat
will Dr. Suess say splat?
thats a little too clever by half imho,
“But it cannot simultaneously spin in both directions because that would violate the fundamental operative laws that govern the universe. So if two observers simultaneously viewed the particle, it could not simultaneously spin in both directions. Regardless of how “strange” their behavior, quantum particles operate within the physical universe.”
Unfortunately, that physical universe does indeed permit particles to spin in both directions at once, or at least to behave exactly as if they are doing so.
“Schrödinger and Einstein were brilliant mathematicians. And at least in this case, entirely lacking in common sense. Mathematicians ideate, physicists “worth their ‘salt’” conduct real world tests that strive to confirm whether ‘the idea’* has any actual validity. *the mathematical hypothesis/theory”
–Geoffrey Britain
Einstein _hated_ quantum mechanics for many of the reasons you reject it. Unfortunately, _every single experimental test_ that has been peformed in the years since affirms QM. Over and over and over, over a period of decades.
Rememer, ‘common sense’ once said that ‘a second is a second is a second’, and of course it was impossible for someone travelling at .99c to experience a year while seven years or so passed on Earth…except that that’s exactly what actually does happen. And both the 1 year and 7 year perceptions are equally real.
QM is crazy. It violates our intuitions about what is real and what is not. It seems, in everyday terms, _impossible_. But it _works_. It’s the basis of most of our advanced electronics and communications technology. It’s part of why atom bombs detonate, and just ask the people of Hiroshima if that is real.
The universe just doesn’t operate the way our brains are wired to want it to.
“If a tree falls in the forest it makes a sound, whether or not you’re there to hear it.” — IrishOtter49
No, it doesn’t. It makes the atoms of the air and ground vibrate, yes, but _sound_ is a perception the brain produces in reaction to the ear being impacted by those vibrations. Some people with brain disorders perceive vibrations in the ear as other things than sound.
It’s like color. The light impinging on our eyes is different physical frequencies, yes, but _color_ is a perception of those frequencies in the brain. For people with red/green color blindness, those two frequency bands are the same color. For people with total color blindess (rare), color just doesn’t exist. The frequency differences are real, and a color-blind person can measure them with instruments or calculate their nature, but for him or her, color is not a thing. For some people, indigo is real, for others, it’s just purple or blue. The frequency differences are real, the colors are perceptual and conditional.
Which isn’t just nit-picking. We experience the world through our senses and it’s easy to assume that what we perceive is ‘the’ reality, which is only conditionally true. Often it makes no practical difference, but sometimes it matters a lot.