Schroedingers Cat

There is a well-known quantum-mechanics paradox, that of Schroedinger's cat. The premise of this paradox is as follows. A cat is placed in a box, along with a container of poison gas. [1] The gas release is linked to a geiger counter, which detects the decay of a single radioactive atom. The current theory in quantam mechanics is that an un-observed event exists in a wave function of all possible states. The very act of observing the state of the event causes it to fall into one of the possible outcomes. Therefore, since the state of the radioactive atom is unknown, the cat is in an undetermined state of aliveness. Once an observation is made, it will be found that either the cat is alive, or that the atom decayed and the cat is dead. (The difference here from plain logical thinking is that while it is not known whether the cat is alive, the cat exists in both alive and dead states simultaneously.) However, your two quantum engineers, Rick and Noam, have come up with a solution to this problem. The cat itself knows whether it is alive [2] and therefore constitutes an observer. If the cat knows it's alive, then the wave function collapses into the 'alive' state, and the cat is alive. If the cat knew it was dead, then the same argument would follow.. except that it can never be aware that it is dead. Only if alive can it act as an observer. If it doesn't know it's alive, then it's state is still undetermined, except that if it were alive, it would know it's alive. Therefore, the cat is dead by default (since it can't be alive without knowing it [2]). [1] No, this experiment was never actually performed, as A. it's cruel and B. doing so would serve no purpose, as will soon become apparent This is pure fictional crap.[3] [2] Assuming, of course, that the cat is self-aware.. a topic for another discussion ... AreCatsSelfAware? [3] Just because the experiment itself was never performed doesn't make the paradox "crap". If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Is that an invalid question or 'crap' because we can't perform the experiment and will never know the answer? What makes you say it's crap? (summer) Just to keep things in perspective.....a little quantum verse. Schrödinger, Erwin! Professor of physics! Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics! (Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.) Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented. What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic, No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic. Consider electrons. Now these teeny articles Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles. If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance! No sweat, though my theory permits us to judge Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was." Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck The comforting linkage of cause and effect. E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schrödinger tried To tell him what quantum mechanics implied. Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat, And inside a tube we have put that cat at Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos, A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes (Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em, One vial Prussic acid, one decaying ottom Or atom whatever but when it emits, A trigger device blasts the vial into bits Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime Are 50 to 50 per hour each time. The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is Our pussy still purring or pushing up daisies? Now you'd say the cat either lives or it don't But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't. Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke), Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked. To some this may seem a ridiculous split, But quantum mechanics must answer 'Tough shit. We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho': There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know. Shine light on electrons you'll cause them to swerve. The act of observing disturbs the observed Which ruins your test. But if there's no testing To see if a particle's moving or resting Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor! We know probability certainty never.' The effect of this notion? I very much fear 'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear. Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports, 'We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse.'" So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts. God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz. I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried In vain until fin'ly he more or less died. Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends, Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends. Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint: Ten-to-one he's in heaven but five bucks says he ain't."

     -by Cecil Adams

hmmm, I recently read the book called "In search of Schröedinger's Cat", and I came the that same conclusion(that the cat is an observer and knows wheather its dead or alive).

JesseBorges

Rick, Noam, JesseBorges and the author of "In search of Schröedinger's Cat" need to review their quantum theory. I am a high school student, and I don't have a formal education in quantum mechanics, but it seems to me that the cat is in a quantum fog until an outside object interacts with the cat; this could be as small as an oxygen molecule being either metabolised or not by the cat; but intelligence and sentience are not part of quantum theory. for more of my viewpoint, read the first response down below.

 --Andrew Stephenson

Okay, first of all, just in case you forgot.... physics is not necessarily meant to be applied to REALITY The wave function which is referred to I have called the sum of all histories. The sum of all histories includes imaginary time, yes, imaginary time. As in, for example, a human may die to form a singularity, but in the sum of all histories, it includes all paths or results, all probabilities, that the history could have been. So..the human, in imaginary time, can live on. Physics or science experiments are not always designed to be tested in reality. I am by no means an expert on physics, but I believe there are several faults in this explanation. -mike