Schrödinger's Cat Paradox

For the sheer sake of seeing Schadenfreude followed by Schrödinger I present the following:

Schrödinger's Cat: A cat, along with a flask containing a poison and a radioactive source, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead.

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, that Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger devised in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung (entanglement).

The real question here is did he set out to coin a term that means entanglement via ridiculous paradoxical notions or was it the other way around? And how much weed are they smoking up in Copenhagen? Isn't the whole thing really just another way of describing a Zombie Cat?

Zombie Cat Zombie Cat's Errant Soul

PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS EXPERIMENT AT HOME

Tags: crazy white men, schrodinger's cat, thought experiment

Comment

You need to be a member of Comedy Whirled to add comments!

Join Comedy Whirled

Comment by Codename: Spydergirl on August 2, 2011 at 3:49pm: Be afraid when they get opposable thumbs!

Comment by mellowpuma on July 28, 2011 at 10:15pm: The conclusion of this experiment is obvious. Scientists hate theoretical animals.

It started with dragons, everybody thinking they were real, knights saying they slayed a dragon, thereby getting all the comely maids. That's why alchemists tried drinking different combinations of chemicals to become hemaprodites, they wanted to know what a lady's secret parts looked like. Most of them died, but some lived, and passed down their theoretical animal hatred down, father scientist to son scientist, through the generations. Sure, the whole "trying to become a hemaphrodite" thing got swept to the side, but the destruction of imaginary animals still haunts us to this day.

Comment by LL Bein on July 28, 2011 at 3:25pm: Is this one of those Hindu/Buddhist/Existentialism/inception/Mindtrap/Headfuck deals where the cat gets a new leash on life as long as he believes he's alive, he's alive? It'll kill me if I don't know, what was the religious heritage of the cat? I believe that cat was dead the second he got involved with the German. Austrian is just a nice way of denying you're a Nazi. He might have fooled that darn cat but not me. Who else would do that to a kitteh?

Comment by Bubba Licious on July 28, 2011 at 2:47pm: And I was going to do one on Robert Schumann.

Comment by MacSpruce on July 28, 2011 at 12:06pm: " ... simultaneously alive and dead."

Comment by MacSpruce on July 28, 2011 at 11:44am: From Schadenfreude to Schrödinger? I think you left out Schopenhauer!