Schrödinger's cat could be saved.
Discussion
Fun little bit of research here. Apparently "new research casts doubt on idea that a quantum jump is instant and unpredictable".
Article said:
Scientists writing in the Nature journal believe the jump is not instantaneous, just very fast, and that it is actually more of a glide than a jump. What’s more, there are telltale signs that a quantum jump is about to occur, even if in a broader sense it remains unpredictable.
It also seems the “jump” can be reversed midway through the transition, meaning Schrödinger’s cat might be brought back from the brink.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/03/fe...It also seems the “jump” can be reversed midway through the transition, meaning Schrödinger’s cat might be brought back from the brink.
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
Just call me Penny.
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
I'm with you Penny, I've never understood the wetdreamy fascination with this one, I'd assumed I was simply too thick...Just call me Penny.
The cat is always in one state, it knows (or ceases to) exactly what state it's in.
It's a bit like saying at this very moment, dundarach is in bed with Kylie and until you prove me wrong, I am both in bed and not in bed.
Sadly, I'm not!
popeyewhite said:
Mr Pointy said:
Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state.
Just call me Penny.
No one said it was. The point is that until you open the box you won't know if it's a dead kitty or a live kitty.Just call me Penny.
It doesn't change the state of the cat, what is the point of the thought experiment, to prove 'you' don't know things.
'you' don't know whether I'm naked and smeared in cooking fat (with Kylie naturally), however why does it matter to you?
I'm still struggling with what appears to be a massively complex, massively popular, pointless thing... (just like Kyle, not the last bit obviously)
'you' could be anyone...
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
But the point is that some quantum events do appear to be affected by your knowledge of the state. It can be the quantum equivalent of throwing either heads or tails. Whichever you look for you get, and the other side of the coin turns out to be the opposite.Just call me Penny.
So the corollary is that if the cat's life depends on whether you've got heads or tails, it's status is indeterminate until you check which you have. Which for a cat is clearly ridiculous, so something must be wrong with the notion that quantum particles are affected by observation.
An interpretation I quite like is that if either can happen, then both happen in different universes. As long as the state of the particle is the only difference you can be in both universes at the same time, once you observe it then you are forcing yourself into one universe. In that case you have an alive cat and a dead cat and your observation decides which reality you are in.
Multiple universes are a bit weird of course, but so is one universe.
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
Schrödinger only came up with the cat thing to illustrate the absurdity of applying quantum rules to the 'real' world.Just call me Penny.
I prefer (Terry) Pratchett's Cat - there's a third cat-state of 'bloody furious' and you open the box very carefully...
Dr Jekyll said:
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
But the point is that some quantum events do appear to be affected by your knowledge of the state. It can be the quantum equivalent of throwing either heads or tails. Whichever you look for you get, and the other side of the coin turns out to be the opposite.Just call me Penny.
So the corollary is that if the cat's life depends on whether you've got heads or tails, it's status is indeterminate until you check which you have. Which for a cat is clearly ridiculous, so something must be wrong with the notion that quantum particles are affected by observation.
An interpretation I quite like is that if either can happen, then both happen in different universes. As long as the state of the particle is the only difference you can be in both universes at the same time, once you observe it then you are forcing yourself into one universe. In that case you have an alive cat and a dead cat and your observation decides which reality you are in.
Multiple universes are a bit weird of course, but so is one universe.
I get lambasted (word of the day) for believing in the sky fairy...
How on earth does looking in a box affect the cat?
Yes, to the observer it matters, however so does everything doesn't it, I mean whether I've eaten all the scampy fries I bought doesn't change when I look, simply my understanding of how many of the tasty little buggers are left...?
Genuinely I'm trying to understand, I read the article which is nonsense isn't it. It suggests the event could be very slow, and therefore reversible...??
But what if the cat died immediately, and you open the box after 5 minutes, not reversing that are you?
Also why does the poison and isotope matter, is it the same 'theoretical' experiment as say; dog in a box with a treat and until you open the box the treat is both eaten and yet not eaten???
Halmyre said:
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
Schrödinger only came up with the cat thing to illustrate the absurdity of applying quantum rules to the 'real' world.Just call me Penny.
I prefer (Terry) Pratchett's Cat - there's a third cat-state of 'bloody furious' and you open the box very carefully...
Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
dundarach said:
Also why does the poison and isotope matter, is it the same 'theoretical' experiment as say; dog in a box with a treat and until you open the box the treat is both eaten and yet not eaten???
The isotope matters because it's at that level that observations seem to affect reality. The poison is just a way of connecting what is affected to things that aren't, such as cats. Thereby showing that quantum effects can't really be affected by observations because cats aren't.On the other hand observations do seem to affect very small particles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect%27s_experimen...
In fact the principle is used in quantum cryptography to detect eavesdroppers.
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
So, I’ll start by saying I’m not a physicist! Just call me Penny.
However, as I understand it, this relates to the double slit experiment.
https://physicsworld.com/a/do-atoms-going-through-...
The act of observing collapses the state of the object into one of the two possible options (left or right slit, alive or dead cat). Until it’s observed it can be thought to be both simultaneously - at least, that my limited (and probably wrong!) understanding of it...
DanL said:
Mr Pointy said:
I don't get this cat business. As I understand it there's a cat, a box, poison & a radioactive source. The premise is that until you open the box you don't know if the cat is dead or alive & hence you can think of it as both. However, that's not true. Whether the cat is dead or alive is not affected by your knowledge of the state. You not knowing doesn't stop it being dead if the poison is released or being alive if it hasn't. It's only in one state at a time.
Just call me Penny.
So, I’ll start by saying I’m not a physicist! Just call me Penny.
However, as I understand it, this relates to the double slit experiment.
https://physicsworld.com/a/do-atoms-going-through-...
The act of observing collapses the state of the object into one of the two possible options (left or right slit, alive or dead cat). Until it’s observed it can be thought to be both simultaneously - at least, that my limited (and probably wrong!) understanding of it...
I expect I'm missing something huge here, I am not a physicist.
ElectricSoup said:
So if observation can have this determining effect on the state of a particle, did this property of behaviour only come in to existence once a life form capable of observing it came in to existence, and started observing? Does this behaviour only ever occur under observation? If so, then it must be very, very rare behaviour indeed, and a behaviour which only came in to existence, so far as we know, in the late 20th century on this planet.
I expect I'm missing something huge here, I am not a physicist.
I think it's not so much the observation, but the interaction between the particle and the rest of the universe.I expect I'm missing something huge here, I am not a physicist.
dundarach said:
Also why does the poison and isotope matter, is it the same 'theoretical' experiment as say; dog in a box with a treat and until you open the box the treat is both eaten and yet not eaten???
Depends if the dog is a Labrador or not.If it is, then the most absolutely certain fact in the Universe, and in all possible Universes, is that the treat will have been eaten.
Labradors do in fact understand the nuances of quantum physics, but they just don't give a stuff about the rules if there is food involved.
ElectricSoup said:
So if observation can have this determining effect on the state of a particle, did this property of behaviour only come in to existence once a life form capable of observing it came in to existence, and started observing? Does this behaviour only ever occur under observation? If so, then it must be very, very rare behaviour indeed, and a behaviour which only came in to existence, so far as we know, in the late 20th century on this planet.
I expect I'm missing something huge here, I am not a physicist.
What happens is explained in some detail here, much better than I can. I expect I'm missing something huge here, I am not a physicist.
https://plus.maths.org/content/physics-minute-doub...
What isn’t explained is why this happens, and it’s honestly beyond me as I’m not a physicist!
To summarise, tiny bits of matter appear to act like waves and interfere with each other to form a wave like distribution when fired through two slits. Oddly, this also happens when you send a single particle through. Very oddly, this doesn’t happen when you’re looking to see which slit the particle actually went through...
dundarach said:
I think that is the point, why is 'you' knowing important.
.
Who has said it is? It's a simple thought experiment. Whilst in the box the cat is - for the sake of the experiment - halfway between dead or alive, in an imagined quantum state. When the box is opened though the contents have to one or the other, either dead or alive - not both..
DanL said:
hat happens is explained in some detail here, much better than I can.
https://plus.maths.org/content/physics-minute-doub...
What isn’t explained is why this happens, and it’s honestly beyond me as I’m not a physicist!
To summarise, tiny bits of matter appear to act like waves and interfere with each other to form a wave like distribution when fired through two slits. Oddly, this also happens when you send a single particle through. Very oddly, this doesn’t happen when you’re looking to see which slit the particle actually went through...
What blew my mind was finding out that it wasn't just particles, but relatively large molecules too-https://plus.maths.org/content/physics-minute-doub...
What isn’t explained is why this happens, and it’s honestly beyond me as I’m not a physicist!
To summarise, tiny bits of matter appear to act like waves and interfere with each other to form a wave like distribution when fired through two slits. Oddly, this also happens when you send a single particle through. Very oddly, this doesn’t happen when you’re looking to see which slit the particle actually went through...
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/physicis...
HaiKarate said:
I'm trying, I really am, she's lovely so watched it anyway...However this simply doesn't explain the cat however, the video suggests that neutrons can exist in both square and colours and can flip between them, which is fine.
However the cat can-not ever exist as alive and dead can it.
Whomever is outside the box is irrelevant, the cat is and will always be one or the other.
Yes to out perspective we do not know, however if we look in and determine it's stage and then close the box.
Until we tell the next person, they themselves will believe the cat is both alive and dead and it is in fact one or the other, we know this as we've just looked in.
Now the neutron video is entirely different, she's suggesting that even with a bag of neutrons, they themselves can exist in both states at the same time and flip between them, which they very well might, and therefore when I look, I see 100% blue and you look and see 100% green, as yes that's their properties.
However the cat does not have this property, when it's dead, it'll stay dead...
I appreciate this is a pedantic argument and the cat is a representation of the the neutron or something other complex thingy, however in reality, the cat is one of the other and does not change (well it does only once)
However, did enjoy the video, thanks
dundarach said:
I'm trying, I really am, she's lovely so watched it anyway...
However this simply doesn't explain the cat however, the video suggests that neutrons can exist in both square and colours and can flip between them, which is fine.
However the cat can-not ever exist as alive and dead can it.
But this is precisely the point. The cat can't be, but according to the theory the neutron can, so what happens if the life of the cat DEPENDS on the neutron's state? The idea isn't to demonstrate that a cat can be both alive and dead, but to demonstrate that the idea of a Neutron being in two states simultaneously is far fetched, arguably just as far fetched as a two state cat.However this simply doesn't explain the cat however, the video suggests that neutrons can exist in both square and colours and can flip between them, which is fine.
However the cat can-not ever exist as alive and dead can it.
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