Science!: Raptorex, The Beatles and WTF

[Steve Dark]

Ahhh Quantum Theory. While our affair was brief it was ever so sweet... Tis' just a shame they closed the physics department at my university after my first year. ¬_¬

Also, has anyone thought that maybe this miniature T-rex was maybe just... I dunno... a young one? Some poor Teen-rex who bit off more than he could chew?

 

[randommaster]

So, if you put a cat in a box, and have poison trip-wired, and the wire is broken by a radioactive substance, the cat is theoretically both alive and dead?

I've rationalized the Schrodinger's Cat concept by deciding that the man knew next to nothing about biology.

I wonder what his definition of 'dead' was. Like, brain dead, not breathing, no pulse, or simply locked in an air-tight box with poison and radioactive chemicals? Whichever it was, when he opened the box, he'd either have a dead cat or a dead cat and a very angry cat lady.

The experiment wasn't meant to actually be tested since putting a cat in a sealed box will kill it even if there's no poison. The point of the cat was that you don't know if the substance has decayed, but the only way to know would be to open the box. Opening the box is analogous to disrupting the conditions for superposition. As long as the box is sealed, the cat is superpositioned, but checking disrupts the superpositioning.

Also, Sokar hates Schrodinger. [http://dresdencodak.com/2006/02/13/trouble-in-memphis/]

 

[CoverYourHead]

And someone invented teleporting flu viruses? Thats not good is it???

We'll just build artificially intelligent robots to fix the problem if a careless scientist accidentally smashes their microscope slide and punctures their environmental suit while performing that research.

What could possibly go wrong?

By fix the problem, do you mean destroy the pathetic human?

Isn't that the only problem to be fixed? muhahaha.

Quantum physics make my head hurt. Badly. But my mind was blown at the same time...

Best column ever.

 

[MajoraPersona]

So, if you put a cat in a box, and have poison trip-wired, and the wire is broken by a radioactive substance, the cat is theoretically both alive and dead?

I've rationalized the Schrodinger's Cat concept by deciding that the man knew next to nothing about biology.

I wonder what his definition of 'dead' was. Like, brain dead, not breathing, no pulse, or simply locked in an air-tight box with poison and radioactive chemicals? Whichever it was, when he opened the box, he'd either have a dead cat or a dead cat and a very angry cat lady.

The experiment wasn't meant to actually be tested since putting a cat in a sealed box will kill it even if there's no poison. The point of the cat was that you don't know if the substance has decayed, but the only way to know would be to open the box. Opening the box is analogous to disrupting the conditions for superposition. As long as the box is sealed, the cat is superpositioned, but checking disrupts the superpositioning.

Also, Sokar hates Schrodinger. [http://dresdencodak.com/2006/02/13/trouble-in-memphis/]

Was Schrodinger alive before the time of the geiger counters and glass windows?

You know what? Forget it. Quantum phsysics makes no sense to me, I'll stick with using my imagination to create whole worlds that both exist and don't simultaneously. That way I can ignore this whole cat thing.

 

[Wandrecanada]

This is officially my new favorite column.

Yay for science!

I must now retire to the fainting couch as my electrons are EVERYWHERE!

 

[LewsTherin]

This only gives me more evidence to the argument that physicists are trying to kill us all.

 

[The Random One]

I already knew about the tiny T-Rex! Thanks, Dinosaur Comics!

You know what? Forget it. Quantum phsysics makes no sense to me, I'll stick with using my imagination to create whole worlds that both exist and don't simultaneously. That way I can ignore this whole cat thing.

No, no, you don't get it. The fact that you can't know what's happening in the box is what makes the superimposed state happen. Using a geiger counter or a glass window is the same as opening it. It's not that you can't tell what's going on in the box and that's weird, it's that as long as you don't know what's going on in the box both outcomes are happening at the same time. What he does is take an event that is commonplace in quantum physics, but makes no sense in "regular" one, and create a scenario that makes it affect the regular one, i.e. the state of the cat.

Look, it's really simple, when you figure it out. When you don't, it's not.

 

[jh322]

Genius comic, there

 

[MajoraPersona]

You know what? Forget it. Quantum phsysics makes no sense to me, I'll stick with using my imagination to create whole worlds that both exist and don't simultaneously. That way I can ignore this whole cat thing.

No, no, you don't get it. The fact that you can't know what's happening in the box is what makes the superimposed state happen. Using a geiger counter or a glass window is the same as opening it. It's not that you can't tell what's going on in the box and that's weird, it's that as long as you don't know what's going on in the box both outcomes are happening at the same time. What he does is take an event that is commonplace in quantum physics, but makes no sense in "regular" one, and create a scenario that makes it affect the regular one, i.e. the state of the cat.

Look, it's really simple, when you figure it out. When you don't, it's not.

I notice you removed the pertinent part of my post.

From the page Wikipedia cited:

5. Are the Variables Really Blurred?

-snip-

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

I don't understand where the confusion is (primarily since those who 'understand it' don't care to answer my primary question: Why the fuck did he choose, of all things, a cat in a box with poison?), but as near as I can tell, he was making fun of the Copenhagen interpretation thing. NOT suggesting it as a concept, but using it to point out a fallacy.

Schrodinger's Cat is second in annoyance, in my mind at least, to the use of Non-Euclidean Geometry as an unsettling agent in the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

 

[pneuma08]

"It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation." So as long as it is not observed, it is not resolved, which is the whole point; from what I understand, the point Schrodinger was making was we have no idea where this superpositioning is supposed to end. If it was indeed an argument then it fails because none of the Cat's logic sets up any sort of fallacy.

I don't know. From my own experiences, I haven't met a physicist yet that rejects the idea of Schrodinger's cat or quantum superposition. In fact, last I've heard, it was observed in laboratory conditions (via electromagnetic force on an electron cloud; the force was spread evenly across the entire cloud until the position of the electron was measured, after which the entire force was centered on the position). I also heard that someone was able to create a visible state of superposition using an object measured in hundreds of nanometers. That said, I never did follow up on those, and I don't have any proof to contribute to this discussion, so take all of that with a grain of salt.

In any event, I'm happy enough to leave the quantum discoveries to the quantum physicists.

 

[samsonguy920]

It's like more of Daniel Jackson translating science so O'Neill can understand. Me Likey! (While I like to think I fall between the two, knowledge-wise.)
And while science can tear apart music and put it back together again, it does not make music, nor translate it completely. Beatles still hold the ball.

 

[101194]

A great magazine once said this.
"Science is interesting, If you don't agree with us you can fuck-off."

 

[Credge]

I thought A Hard Days Night mystery was solved years ago. Like, right after the album came out.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

There are two cases where almost everybody seems to misunderstand what Scientists intended.

1. Newton modestly saying that he achieved what he had only because he was a dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants. Newton was a sarcastic man who had many faults but modesty wasn't one of them. He was making a cruel joke about the bad posture and lack of insight of the head of the royal society Robert Hooke.

2. Schrödinger's cat is an understandable thought experiment that offers an insight into how quantum physics works. Actually, it was devised as an example of the absurdity of contemporary quantum physics theories that were developed in such a way as to accommodate the fact that you cannot take measurements without affecting the experiment.

 

[randommaster]

So, if you put a cat in a box, and have poison trip-wired, and the wire is broken by a radioactive substance, the cat is theoretically both alive and dead?

I've rationalized the Schrodinger's Cat concept by deciding that the man knew next to nothing about biology.

I wonder what his definition of 'dead' was. Like, brain dead, not breathing, no pulse, or simply locked in an air-tight box with poison and radioactive chemicals? Whichever it was, when he opened the box, he'd either have a dead cat or a dead cat and a very angry cat lady.

The experiment wasn't meant to actually be tested since putting a cat in a sealed box will kill it even if there's no poison. The point of the cat was that you don't know if the substance has decayed, but the only way to know would be to open the box. Opening the box is analogous to disrupting the conditions for superposition. As long as the box is sealed, the cat is superpositioned, but checking disrupts the superpositioning.

Also, Sokar hates Schrodinger. [http://dresdencodak.com/2006/02/13/trouble-in-memphis/]

Was Schrodinger alive before the time of the geiger counters and glass windows?

You know what? Forget it. Quantum physics makes no sense to me, I'll stick with using my imagination to create whole worlds that both exist and don't simultaneously. That way I can ignore this whole cat thing.

I think you're confusing the thought experiment with an actual experiment. The point isn't to see if the cat dies, but to demonstrate the nature of superposition.

But yeah, quantum physics usually makes as much logical sense as magic to most people.

 

[Deity1986]

...
2. Schrödinger's cat is an understandable thought experiment that offers an insight into how quantum physics works. Actually, it was devised as an example of the absurdity of contemporary quantum physics theories that were developed in such a way as to accommodate the fact that you cannot take measurements without affecting the experiment.

Yeah, by that time Schrödinger actually hated his own theory (or what it had become).

That double-slit thing was good, but I don't like this idea of an observer affecting things. It is not because someone observes something that it collapses into a state, it is because an instrument is used to measure it and you can't observe a particle in a fluctuating state. You get one of the states it is possible to be in, then repeat the experiment several times to find the probabilities of the particle being in the different states. I guess the cat-in-a-box idea would be more apt if the cat was fluctuating between an alive and dead state (creepy, no?).

 

[Redingold]

So, if you put a cat in a box, and have poison trip-wired, and the wire is broken by a radioactive substance, the cat is theoretically both alive and dead?

I've rationalized the Schrodinger's Cat concept by deciding that the man knew next to nothing about biology.

I wonder what his definition of 'dead' was. Like, brain dead, not breathing, no pulse, or simply locked in an air-tight box with poison and radioactive chemicals? Whichever it was, when he opened the box, he'd either have a dead cat or a dead cat and a very angry cat lady.

It's a thought experiment, so introducing common sense doesn't really make sense. The cat is just an analogy for the simultaneously decayed and non-decayed isotope.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"However, the box is completely sealed and you can't look into it. Since you cannot know whether the cat is alive, you must assume that the cat is simultaneously dead and alive"

Calculate the dimensions of the box, the amount of oxygen inside, look up how much oxygen a cat uses and voila; the cat is definedly dead by hypoxia soon enough.
It's not a very well constructed experiment...
Also, the cat will definitely be alive because I will call Animalk Services before it can die.

 

[KazNecro]

*Sighs happily* Every time I read or hear of a news story on Quantum Physics, I am transported to a happy land filled with the sounds of "Particle Man" as I play dice with God and stick my tongue out at Einstein.

And I swear, my friend and I have some of the most intense discussions on Schrodinger's cat whenever its brought up. Thanks for adding more fuel to the fire, Lauren. LOL

 

[Rhayn]

Oh yes, quantum physics.

My visit to CERN was both wasted and best spent money ever.