Shrodingers Cat Thought Experiment

[peter]

Forgive me guys if I've asked this before, I've searched to no avail on the subject, but can someone just help me with an understanding of just what is being proposed by Shrodinger's famous cat experiment.

Here's the central question I have; are we to see Shrodinger's dual state (a state that if I'm correct encompasses the cat being both alive and dead simultaneously within its complex nature) as the state of all future unknown events, macro and quantum (ie. so it really does apply to a cat placed in such a box) - or was Shrodinger just using a macro-size analogy for conditions that apply only at the quantum level of existence.

If the first pertains, I can say, envisage a Universe where I .... what.... turn up at work today and my boss is away sick; I can envision another scenario where I turn up and she isn't. Is Shrodinger saying that in opening the door it is me the observer that is forcing the universe down one of those paths or the other (or indeed another where she has morphed into a fifteen foot high blob of green slime with tentacles and one big eye) - and all this is happening, all the time, in every causative action taken by anything of any description over the whole history of time. Following on from this, are some scientists saying, no - rather than causing one of the possible futures to actuate, and all the others to collapse into non-occuring also-ran's, what you are actually doing in opening the door, is causing all of those possible future universes to actuate in an infinite multifurcation (a bifurcation, but lots of them ) spinning of through the infinite number of alternative futures that being and the laws of physics allow for.

But I get ahead of myself. If Shrodinger was here would be clip me round the ear and say "no, you dolt! It's a bloody thought experiment - it only happens down at the quantum level: the big world doesn't work like that!" (second clip for good measure) ........ or , would he look at me with a teary eye before squeezing me by the hand and saying "By 'eck lad - yer'v nailed it" (was Shrodinger from Yorkshire?).

[Ur Dead]

[Ur Dead]

Now lets add to the Shrodinger's famous cat experiment. In this case we add you.(or a second cat) Now there are two possible outcomes when you open the box.

If you open the box the cat is alive but:
The detector functions because it has caught a decay from your body.
The hammer trips smashes the bottle.
The cat freaks out and jumps landing on your head.
Shove your nose into the poison vapor.
You die.

or the cat jumps land on your head but your brace for impact.
You live because you have supported your nose from being thrust
into the poison.

or

You open the box the cat is dead but:
you peer down to really inspect the cat to see if it was dead and
you get a whiff of the lingering poison and die.

or you see the dead cat close the box call the emergency services
because of the toxic substance and they get rid of the box.
You live.

So a Schrodinger's Cat can invoke another Schrodinger's Cat.
Mindbending isn't it.

_________________

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Here's the central question I have; are we to see Shrodinger's dual state (a state that if I'm correct encompasses the cat being both alive and dead simultaneously within its complex nature) as the state of all future unknown events, macro and quantum (ie. so it really does apply to a cat placed in such a box) - or was Shrodinger just using a macro-size analogy for conditions that apply only at the quantum level of existence.

It is a macro analogy designed to give us an impression as to what is going on at the quantum level.

He could just as easily asked someone to place 5 6-sided dice in a box, shake it for 30 seconds, then ask them what the results on the dice are. Clearly, you cannot know until the you open the box so until you open the box the results could be anything. Of course, the reality is that the result on the dice is already fixed before opening the box but we, the observers outside the box, cannot know the results until we open it.

As much as I would like for infinite multiverses to exist, the reality is that every time a macro event occurs all other possible realities which could have existed cease to exist. If I roll a die and I get a 4, there aren't also alternate realities where I rolled a 2 or a 3; there is only one universe where I rolled a 4.

Similarly, in the Schrodinger experiment the reality is that the cat is already either alive or dead inside the box, it is just that you don't know until you look inside.

Remember, when he first proposed this most people had absolutely no knowledge of wave equations, probability, etc. It is like Bohr's model of the atom--we know that electrons do not travel in neat orbits but it served as a model to introduce the concept to people.

[I'm Murrin]

And of course the reason he came up with the cat-in-a-box analogy is that he thought the whole idea was ridiculous and wanted to show how absurd it is when you scale it up to macro-level. He didn't actually believe the theory his analogy came to be the best-known illustration of.

[Vraith]

you're like magic...precognitive, peter.
You're constantly asking questions right before I run across something that talks about the topic...
just out today at quanta [though I think the exact thing it's talking about came up before somewhere]:


https://www.quantamagazine.org/frauchig ... -20181203/

[peter]

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get back to this; so much stuff to say and so little time to say it!

Here's the central question I have; are we to see Shrodinger's dual state (a state that if I'm correct encompasses the cat being both alive and dead simultaneously within its complex nature) as the state of all future unknown events, macro and quantum (ie. so it really does apply to a cat placed in such a box) - or was Shrodinger just using a macro-size analogy for conditions that apply only at the quantum level of existence.

Similarly, in the Schrodinger experiment the reality is that the cat is already either alive or dead inside the box, it is just that you don't know until you look inside.

Hashi, are you saying that in the quantum world the event has also occured before we have opened the box of experimental observation, or are you only referring to macro world events here, and saying that the collapsing of multi-existant states into one 'having happened' state does occur at the quantum level, but not at the macro. Why, I wonder, would there be such a fundamental dislocation of the way that being operates between the small and the large?

Despite lack of empiricalevidence, physicists think it can be used to describe systems at all scales.

This, from V's link would tend to imply something different than perhaps even Shrodinger himself intended when he proposed his experiment. It's a fascinating article V, and one that illustrates just how far I am from getting this subject under my belt. That said, my gut feeling is that the guy at the end who compares the situation at present to that of the pre Einstein state where the absence of a transfer medium such as the fabled 'ether' was the chief conundrum, and nobody could have (before the event) have concieved that it would be resolved by an alteration of the very nature of space/time itself, is somewhere close to the mark. Happy to see Deutsch is still in the thick of it and hopeful that quantum computing (his field) will advance to a point where it can really start being useful in the untangling of this Gordian knot!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Hashi, are you saying that in the quantum world the event has also occured before we have opened the box of experimental observation, or are you only referring to macro world events here, and saying that the collapsing of multi-existant states into one 'having happened' state does occur at the quantum level, but not at the macro. Why, I wonder, would there be such a fundamental dislocation of the way that being operates between the small and the large?

Despite lack of empiricalevidence, physicists think it can be used to describe systems at all scales.

This, from V's link would tend to imply something different than perhaps even Shrodinger himself intended when he proposed his experiment. It's a fascinating article V, and one that illustrates just how far I am from getting this subject under my belt. That said, my gut feeling is that the guy at the end who compares the situation at present to that of the pre Einstein state where the absence of a transfer medium such as the fabled 'ether' was the chief conundrum, and nobody could have (before the event) have concieved that it would be resolved by an alteration of the very nature of space/time itself, is somewhere close to the mark. Happy to see Deutsch is still in the thick of it and hopeful that quantum computing (his field) will advance to a point where it can really start being useful in the untangling of this Gordian knot!

No. At the quantum level sometimes an event doesn't occur until you look to see if it took place, sometimes looking at the same set of circumstances can result in different events taking place, and sometimes events occur before you look for them--recall that at the quantum level time as we experience it does not exist, by which I mean it does not necessarily flow in one direction only.

At the macro level, events occur independently of our observation. We may be able to accurately guess what happened based on the amount of information we have available but whether we look or not at a particular point in time the cat is most definitely either dead or alive regardless of whether we look in the box or not.

Yes, any of you who haven't read the article should read it. Schrodinger was trying to describe something which even he did not fully understand at that time.

[peter]

Thanks for the clarification Hashi.

[Ur Dead]

To the simple minded folk(like me)
Hashi looked into the box and told Peter the results..

[peter]

On Hashi's last point, I believe Schrodinger actually posited the thought experiment [along with Einstein I believe] in order to highlight the absurdity of quantum theory - not to ratify it in any sense. [May be wrong here but I seem to remember something like this being the case.]

[Skyweir]

[Vraith]

On Hashi's last point, I believe Schrodinger actually posited the thought experiment [along with Einstein I believe] in order to highlight the absurdity of quantum theory - not to ratify it in any sense. [May be wrong here but I seem to remember something like this being the case.]

I THINK that is the case...and when he was "done" he'd convinced himself, failed to convince Einstein, and Bohr just snorted and said "I fucking told you so."

Heh...did you steal that from FB, Sky? There's a ton of funny S-Cat memes and tee ads there.

[Avatar]

And of course the reason he came up with the cat-in-a-box analogy is that he thought the whole idea was ridiculous and wanted to show how absurd it is when you scale it up to macro-level. He didn't actually believe the theory his analogy came to be the best-known illustration of.

Exactly what I was going to say. He was trying to prove it was a stupid idea.

--A

[Skyweir]

Heh...did you steal that from FB, Sky? There's a ton of funny S-Cat memes and tee ads there.[/color]

Guilty as charged