Shrodingers Cat (Shrodingers Human)

D

Dundee

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Ok so we all know of Shrodingers cat,
The punch line of which is the cat is both dead and alive at the same time.

What about this, Instead of the cat, I hop into a box right now before you enter the room, you are an outside observer. I am quite alive and my status as a living being does not change irrespective of wether you the observer knows it or not.

What am I missing. I realize it is a thought exersize but for it to be anything more than an interesting tale like Dragons, it has to have testibility.
I suspect I am missing something here.
But what.
 
You seem to be missing that in the box with the cat was a phial of poison gas that would be opened by a random nuclear particle.
And there was no way of knowing if such a particle had triggered the poison and killed the cat without looking to see. So, to Schrodinger's thinking, until you looked, the cat was both dead and alive.

I consider it to be sophistry.

A normal person would say that the cat was either dead or alive.

Schrodinger was a bit odd that way.

If you care to set up the same experiment with you as the cat, and you don't report in within a week, we will assume your dead.
Best inform relatives about this experiment or it could get a bit smelly in your yard.
 
haha, thanks Hal, you cut right to the heart of the matter. So without looking it up "sophistry" is code for academic twaddle. lol
 
I love it, all the millions of academic hours spent pondering the wonders of Philosophy and shrodingers cat, have finally come to the conclusion that to see if your cat is dead or not its probably best to go have a look.

You got to love academics :)
 
I think he was also trying to get over the point that the observer influenced the experiment.
 
I think he was also trying to get over the point that the observer influenced the experiment.
Yeah I know, but not to be picky, if the observer influences the experiment by looking at it,then technically it is not dead and alive at the same time. It is either already dead, or Alive and destined to die if that is the result of the gas being released on observation of the opened box.
 
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Sabine Hossenfelder does have a way of explaining things that is quite refreshing.
I can imagine that listening in to a coffee break conversation between her and Lisa Randall would teach you more about physics in half an hour than you would learn in a university in a whole term.
 
Allow Sabine to explain it:


And after all that, she confirmed that the cat is not both dead and alive at the same time. But it is I guess a metaphor for superposition. Which is fine as it is the ity bity particles again. But no cat :)
 


sophistry
noun
noun: sophistry
  1. the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.
    "trying to argue that I had benefited in any way from the disaster was pure sophistry"
    • a fallacious argument.
The cat is not dead and alive at the same time, so...seems like sophistry to me :)
 
Ppl may not realize that the double slit experiment is a Schrodinger cat type of experiment. But instead of a cat, it uses light.
 
Ppl may not realize that the double slit experiment is a Schrodinger cat type of experiment. But instead of a cat, it uses light.

Did you know that if detectors are placed close to the double slit experiment, it doesn't work ?
 
It interferes with the 'pattern' if it's close.
 
Dr Wu has a good reference. I saw it in a documentary some years ago.

But there has always been a problem with the double-slit for me. It goes like this. I have to use an analogy.

Suppose you have a rifle. say a .22. You bolt it down firmly to a bench so it can't move at all.

The you go a few yards ahead of it and place a board as a target.

Come back. Fire a round . Go to the board and then mark two areas with black marker. (any colour will do) about two inches away on both sides from where the hole is.

You how have a physical representation of the double slit experiment. You could also place another board just a few inches behind the first one. This would represent the screen.

Ok. Place a bit of sticky tape over the hole. Go back, fire another round. check the target. There will be another hole in the same place as the first one.

Repeat this as often as you want. Always the same result.

So, in the real experiment they use a photon gun.

My problem is 'where do they aim the gun '?

I would think it is aimed at a point exactly between the two slits.

Bear in mind that a photon is very small indeed. Much smaller than the area between the slits.

Photons fly very straight. So if they are firing along a fixed trajectory, they should all land in the same spot.

BETWEEN THE SLITS.

Why do any of them even go into either slit ?

There is something wrong with the description of the double slit experiment as presented to us.

It would almost be equivalent to using a shotgun instead of a rifle in my above analogy.

Anyone care to explain this anomaly ?

P. S. If I can fine the documentary about the interference I'll post a link.
 
Dr Wu has a good reference. I saw it in a documentary some years ago.

But there has always been a problem with the double-slit for me. It goes like this. I have to use an analogy.

Suppose you have a rifle. say a .22. You bolt it down firmly to a bench so it can't move at all.

The you go a few yards ahead of it and place a board as a target.

Come back. Fire a round . Go to the board and then mark two areas with black marker. (any colour will do) about two inches away on both sides from where the hole is.

You how have a physical representation of the double slit experiment. You could also place another board just a few inches behind the first one. This would represent the screen.

Ok. Place a bit of sticky tape over the hole. Go back, fire another round. check the target. There will be another hole in the same place as the first one.

Repeat this as often as you want. Always the same result.

So, in the real experiment they use a photon gun.

My problem is 'where do they aim the gun '?

I would think it is aimed at a point exactly between the two slits.

Bear in mind that a photon is very small indeed. Much smaller than the area between the slits.

Photons fly very straight. So if they are firing along a fixed trajectory, they should all land in the same spot.

BETWEEN THE SLITS.

Why do any of them even go into either slit ?

There is something wrong with the description of the double slit experiment as presented to us.

It would almost be equivalent to using a shotgun instead of a rifle in my above analogy.

Anyone care to explain this anomaly ?

P. S. If I can fine the documentary about the interference I'll post a link.
I saw a doco where some uni students were able to reproduce the interference pattern. In there experiments they used a laser and the slots were very very close to each other. It reproduced the effect very well. So I am guessing we are talking microscopic scal here with slits very close?
 
Photons fly very straight. So if they are firing along a fixed trajectory, they should all land in the same spot.
This is a very outdated way of thinking about photons. In modern theories, photons don't have ballistic trajectories but rather a probability distribution.
 
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