[2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat right

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Soliloquy

[2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat right

Post by Soliloquy »

It's about time somebody shows they actually know what they're talking about with Schrödinger's cat. Its misuse in popular culture has always made my spine crawl.

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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by DonRetrasado »

I must admit that this is something people say that bothers me. I've had people try to explain to me that the experiment shows that the cat is in fact dead and alive, rather than the more common-sense explanation which says "clearly the interpretation is wrong". Then again I simply don't understand most aspects of quantum mechanics.
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Soliloquy

Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by Soliloquy »

Thing is, the very idea of Schrödinger's cat came about from a Schrödinger trying to demonstrate why that interpretation of quantum mechanics is wrong. These days, all everyone gets from is is "Oh, cool! the cat's alive and dead at the same time!" when the whole point of the idea was to say "No, that's stupid and you're stupid."

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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by Sahan »

However, there is no interpretation that currently supercedes it. The cat though experiment was devised to show how ludicrous the idea was to people at the time and why Schroedinger couldn't accept it, and yet when making observations in the quantum world, such an interpretation is still the best explanation for what is observed, since the measured observation can never be predicted with 100% confidence, only probabilities can be given. It's a real headache for quantum physicists as to why this is true at the quantum levels of energy and scale, but doesn't agree with our understanding of the classical world.
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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by DonRetrasado »

Damnation, Sahan! You will rue the day!
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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by Kaharz »

Usually anything anyone says about physics bothers me unless they are actually a physicist. I don't know why people think they have a solid understanding of quantum mechanics after watching an hour long TV show on the same channel that plays shows like Ghost Hunters and Ancient Aliens.
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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by Eisbreaker »

Sahan wrote:It's a real headache for quantum physicists as to why this is true at the quantum levels of energy and scale, but doesn't agree with our understanding of the classical world.
I think the prevalent theory is "Something must be fucking with us".
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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by meow? »

Eisbreaker wrote:
Sahan wrote:It's a real headache for quantum physicists as to why this is true at the quantum levels of energy and scale, but doesn't agree with our understanding of the classical world.
I think the prevalent theory is "Something must be fucking with us".
The Copenhagen Interpretation is pretty much standard practice (in fact, the Schrodinger Cat nonsense, designed to show how absurd it was, turned out to be a helpful analogy). There are other interpretations which build on it, such as the many-worlds interpretation, but the concept of "the state of the object being observed is a probabilistic wave-function until the object is observed" is pretty much solidly accepted as how quantum mechanics works. More of the problem with the disconnect between the chaotic and probabilistic quantum levels of reality and the macro-level classical levels has to do with how do you define "observe" (in a mechanical sense).

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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat ri

Post by cabbagehats »

I used to think Schrodinger's cat was that the cat was inside of the box until you opened the box. Then I would think about yogurt.

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Re: [2012-Feb-18] Thank God someone got Schrödinger's cat right

Post by kathy »

If Schrödinger's melon playground cat can be both alive and dead at the same time, isn't it possible that both theists and atheists are right

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