Schrödinger's Cat

kitten_caboodle said:
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.
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What if it miaows? Have you then observed the miaow?
 
Jambo said:
What if it miaows? Have you then observed the miaow?
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i think it's a soundproof box

If not, then a miaow would confirm the cat is indeed alive. I think :p

I'm rubbish at Science, I'm just interested in the cat thing, I got drawn into a very long and confusing conversation about it a few months ago.
 
Piggymon said:
:eek:

Did this dude really put cats into boxes and kill them ? :/
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Every resource tells us otherwise, plus a little logic: what method of execution could be used that would take effect instantly so the observer wouldn't be able to tell the difference?
 
That vid made me laugh, although it is essentially correct in what it is saying.

The part about the electron splitting is not the case im afraid.

The truth is we actually have no idea what happens. An electon is an elementary particle, if it can indeed be called a particle? too put it into perspective, we still dont actually know what charge is either!

There are many theories that come into play in this situation. The uncertainty principle of position and momentum, wave-particle duality, and the idea that the electron carries with it a probability amplitude that accounts for all states. (ie there is a possibilty of it being in any state / position or what have you.)

Now, the uncertainty principle states that if we measure an electons position, we destroy the motion, and if we know its momentum at any time, we have no idea where it is. So if we observe the electron, completely change its state.

The idea of a quantum jump comes into play here as well.

If we simply accept the fact that we dont know what happens during its transition through the slits, we can imagin the state of the electron being neither particle or wave, or both. So the electron now only has an amplitude of probability. This means that as we have not observed it, there is a possibilty of it appearing anywhere on the screen. A quantum jump is where its state jumps from that of the unknown, to a known state at a known location.


The cat example states that in the quantum world, observation causes a change in state of the "item" under observation. For example, if we observe an electron, we have to shine light at it. This provides a massive amount of energy to the electron itself, and completely changes its state.

Woody :)
 
woodsy2k said:
That vid made me laugh, although it is essentially correct in what it is saying.

The part about the electron splitting is not the case im afraid.
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That's the bit that confuses me. How can simply finding out where it is destroy its existence as a wave? Man it blows my mind :confused: :p
 
Finding out where it is tells us exactly its position in space, so according to the uncertainty priciple, this makes its momentum massively uncertain.
 
its the fact that observing the system causes the electron to behave in a different way and that the wavefunction collapses when observed - i don't really understand that part of quantum mechanics and how that is explainable
 
Dolph said:
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 ;)


me: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'

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....
...
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I dont think that goes against the SoL comment? :confused: tangled particle pairs cause more problems than they're worth! :p
 
Amleto said:
I dont think that goes against the SoL comment? :confused: tangled particle pairs cause more problems than they're worth! :p
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The SoL comment doesn't offer any answer or explaination for the issue though... You offered the SoL thing as a reason why it happens, but it's not....

But yeah, did I ever mention I hate all this stuff.... *grumbles about quantum chemistry*
 
does it matter if its a black cat?
black cats bring bad luck... so... surely it would have more than 50% chance of the nucleus decaying?


:o
 
Amleto said:
'No information can be passed at speeds greater than SoL'
:)
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Actually, quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance", raises the possibility of data transfer over large distances literally instaneously.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Actually, quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance", raises the possibility of data transfer over large distances literally instaneously.
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It was a few years ago, and only at A-level physics, but when I delved in this subject then, I recall that this is not actually possible, or at least not currently believed to be possible.
 
I learned the particle in a 3D box scenario inside out, but it didn't come up on my quantum mechanics exam. :mad:
 
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