Schrödinger's Cat

Amleto said:
You don't have to believe it if you don't want to, but it is observed scientific FACT afaik.
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LOL! The irony! :D

Dolph, I think your links are a bit much for me. Is double slit and eraser to do with observation then?
 
Jambo said:
LOL! The irony! :D

Dolph, I think your links are a bit much for me. Is double slit and eraser to do with observation then?
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Pretty much.

Basically the double slit experiment is where you shine a light source through two slits and you get a specific pattern.

The quantum eraser is where you try and measure which photons of light go one way, which go the other, and the pattern vanishes.

The delayed quantum eraser is where you do the above, but set the measurement to automatically be deleted after it's taken and the pattern reappears, so in other words the pattern is determined by whether the observed information is used, rather than whether it's taken..... Really odd.
 
Amleto said:
You don't have to believe it if you don't want to, but it is observed scientific FACT afaik.
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Oooh, there's a word that's generally best to be avoided in science... There's no such thing as a fact... in fact the delayed eraser experiment pretty much proves this ;)

edit:
dolph - interesting :) but it is inline with 'nothing goes faster than SoL', when what is actually true - 'No information can be passed at speeds greater than SoL'
:)
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Actually, it isn't, because the specific thing with the delayed experiment is that you can leave it a fair old while before deleting the data and the pattern will still show.... You don't have to delete it a fraction of a second after it's taken, you can leave it longer....

This experiment has been known for a good long while, and yet no scientist has been able to explain why it happens, It remains a mystery.
 
I always thought this experiment was an exercise in overthinking. Perhaps there's some subtle quantum physical angle that I'm missing or am totally unable to understand.
 
Ok let me try and see if I can get this right:

Basically, there is a cat inside a closed box with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays then it releases poison and kills the cat, if the atom doesn't decay the cat lives - the atom has a 50% chance of decaying every hour.

Because we do not know whether the cat is dead or alive, and opening the box to check affects the outcome then the cat is "Simultaneously" dead and alive at the same time, UNTIL such time that we observe the cats state as dead or alive... even though observing may kill the cat...

Basically it lies at the very heart of quantum physics that particles can behave as both a wave and a particle (EG photons) and if you perform an experiment that records waves, the photon appears as a wave and if you have equipment that records particles the photon appears as a particle... however not both.

Therefore the very act of "observing" a photon as either a wave or particle seems to determine the state of the photon as whatever we look for, therefore before observation the photo is simultaneously a wave and a particle!

I find this thinking very interesting... look up some more quantum stuff as suggested before as it gets even worse than this!

i suggest looking at single photon interference!! That one boggles, seemingly a single photon can create an interference pattern with itself! :)
 
its an analogy to small particles/waves - most people don't seem to understand that but quantum mechanics is quite clear in that reguard.
only particles with a significant wave function (like electrons) will actually show this effect - a cat definitely will not.
 
There's a third state for the cat to be in: Bloody Furious! :)

I always thought with the SC experiment, that opening the box caused the poison to be released as well, so the cat was always dead when you looked in the box, but it COULD be alive until that point. Observing the dead cat collapses the superposition of the two wave forms down to that of a dead cat, instead of a mixed dead/alive state.
 
Docaroo said:
Therefore the very act of "observing" a photon as either a wave or particle seems to determine the state of the photon as whatever we look for, therefore before observation the photo is simultaneously a wave and a particle!
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Nicely done. :D


p4radox - love that video. :)
 
p4radox said:
This video is pretty good:

http://www.whatthebleep.com/trailer/doubleslit.wm.low.html

The last part touches on quantum theory, and explains it in a nice easy way. :)
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That's a great video. It's hard to believe that happens. I'd love to do that experiment for myself.

I've got What The Bleep Do We Know on DVD - it's quite interesting. Anyone else seen it? What do you make of the water crystals?
 
Raist said:
We stopped doing that in the early 1800s when over-the-counter insta-kill poisons were banned. ;)
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I figured kitties weren't being killed but I wasn't joking about being confused :/
 
Piggymon said:
I figured kitties weren't being killed but I wasn't joking about being confused :/
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We never suspected you were joking. Just surprised you finally admitted it. :p



/ducks



Watch the video p4radox posted. If you're still confused after that, join the rest of the scientific community. :)
 
Raist said:
We never suspected you were joking. Just surprised you finally admitted it. :p
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*SLAAAAAAAAAAAP!!* ;)

EDIT : Duck was too late dude !! :p

I'll watch the vid later if I think my brain is up to it !
 
this *simple* explanation may help. Or it may not :D

The basic idea; If the outcome of a circumstance is presently unknown and by observing the circumstance you will disrupt it, then it exists in all possible states simultaneously... Simple!

So a cat in a box is both alive and dead because you cannot prove eitherway whether it is alive or dead without opening the box to find out - which would theoretically interfere and render the experiment useless.

(the hardest bit to understand for most people is that they *know* that the cat is dead after x amount of days without food/water/air, but to be scientifically sure, you have to be able to prove it. And to prove the cat is dead, you open the box.......which interferes and may cause a reaction that kills the cat should it still be alive......so you have to assume that all states (life and death) are possible.)
 
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kitten_caboodle said:
this *simple* explanation may help. Or it may not :D

The basic idea; If the outcome of a circumstance is presently unknown and by observing the circumstance you will disrupt it, then it exists in all possible states simultaneously... Simple!

So a cat in a box is both alive and dead because you cannot prove eitherway whether it is alive or dead without opening the box which would interfere and render the experiment useless.
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Oh I see !! *penny drops*

Still seems a little silly to me but I've never really been into Science :o
 
Raist said:
We never suspected you were joking. Just surprised you finally admitted it. :p
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I think she was joking and being serious simultaneously. Although I cannot be sure until I observe this but then again that would **** it right up.
 
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