Originally posted by Kilgamayan
any debates?
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this reminds me of the old tree in the forest. i for one think that the cat exists and the tree fell because it occurs in time and time does not lie.
any debates?
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One of the funniest things I ever saw was in my physics class. My teacher put up a "You might be a physicist if..." list, and on there was "...you've ever had the SPCA on your tail for actually conducting the Schrödinger's Cat experiment."
By the way, the tree example has absolutely nothing to do with the Schrödinger's Cat experiment. In the tree example, the tree falls. In the cat example, there's no telling what happened.
To clarify Kilga's summation: You know there is a cat in the box; you put it there. However, you don't know if it's alive or dead because there's an even probability of something killing it or doing nothing. Therefore, the cat is in a state of both life and death, until you open the box.
Basically, it tries to give a macroscopic example of what happens to a photon/several photons going through a double slit. If you send a stream of photons, you get an interference pattern on a screen, showing that photons went through both slits and interfered with each other. If you send individual photons, you still get an interference pattern, showing that the photons went through both slits, though you can't tell which, and they can't go through two at once. However, if you place a detector at one of the slits, no interference is seen and you can tell exactly through which slit each photon went.
What that says is that when you actually observe the photons in flight, you know what happens to them. But when you don't, both possible outcomes are observed. Hence the conclusion that you can't be sure of anything until you observe it. Because you can't observe the cat, it exists in both states (producing an interference pattern, to combine examples) until you go out of your way to see what happened (place a detector).
--Guido
Originally posted by GrandiagodComment
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hmmmm, i always viewed the cat in the box as an example of blissful ignorance. it made me always think about how a bullet from so many miles away fired accidently and skipping off of a pond could shoot rite over your head and youve never know. well this changes my whole perspective. who says theres no education here?Comment
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Off topic here...can bullets skip off ponds? I want to try that.
That's a great explanation, Guido. I never knew what it was. So basically it's saying "unless you have data refuting one possibilityof two, both are true"? That's what I gleaned from it at least.
QComment
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yes, bullets... like rocks... can skip off ponds. surface tension is a wonderful thing.RIPComment
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I know about surface tension, but it seems that the bullet would have to be at an awfully awkward angle to avoid penetrating the surface of the water with the veolicity and shape it takes. You'd have to be either miles away and the bullet has deccelerated and is dropping in altitude or you'd have to fire right above the water surface. Either way, it'd not only be tricky, but highly improbable. I think.
QComment
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i never said it was easy... just that it was possible.RIPComment
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Obviously, there is a critical angle above which the bullet would just penetrate into the water, just like there is a critical angle for spaceships re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The angle is no doubt quite low, but the higher the velocity of the bullet, the higher the angle gets. The smooth curvature of the bullet allows it to ricochet rather easily, too.
And, Q, that was pretty much what the experiment says, though it's probably better phrased as "Nothing is certain unless it is observed."
--Guido
Originally posted by GrandiagodComment
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On the surface tension thing: My dad told me that a 30'06 (a rifle) bullet, when fired, will drop 1 inch over a mile. It's a pretty powerful rifle, so use that for comparison.
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