Schrodinger's Cat Solved

Is this like saying for questions with only two possibilities: in your head before you know the answer to something since you do not know yet there is more than one possibility? and sometimes maybe well sure both ways can be had, at the same time!? Three possibilities, created from two?!... And they cease to be relevant and vanish when you open the box and find your cat's dead. Because cats that eat poision die once. Not nine times. And not so fast that they're still alive at the same time. Certainly a whole lot of complexity and elaboration brought to a basic thinking excercise, that proves itself into a wall. No wonder guys confined to chairs enjoy this. There is a complete detachment from real world use or application. A quark is not a cat.

Could you also flip a coin until you got heads and tails in one?

Or does this violate the imaginary laws?

Originally posted by LizardSlicks

Could you also flip a coin until you got heads and tails in one?

Or does this violate the imaginary laws?

exactly... but I'm sure somebody will add some other dimension to it to make it head and tail in once.

Originally posted by neoholographic
reply to post by micpsi

 

I never said superposition, I said mixed state.

Here's an interesting discussion on the difference between a mixed state and quantum superposition.

www.physicsforums.com...

Although the quantum state of Schroedinger's cat is usually described as a superposition of "dead" and "alive", the cat's entanglement with the decaying nucleus decoheres the cat and the nucleus so that the cat is actually a mixture, not a superposition, of dead and alive. These local mixtures imply that the cat is either definitely dead or alive and the nucleus is either definitely decayed or undecayed, while the nonlocal pure entangled state implies the two outcomes are correlated. This resolves the problem of definite outcomes in measurements even though the entangled "measurement state" is still reversible. Rather than superposing cats, the measurement state superposes correlations. The entanglement-caused collapse shifts the coherence of the pre-measurement suposition into the correlations between the two sub-systems. Thus the collapse obeys unitary dynamics with no need for macroscopic systems, external environments, human minds, other worlds, hidden variables, or collapse mechanisms.

reply to post by micpsi


and this entanglement-caused collapse shift of the coherence of the pre-measurement superposition into the correlations between the two sub-systems is just a way to play smarter then others instead of saying... I have no f.. idea

does it change the whole situation if the atom decays, the poison is released and the cat survives? They have survived multiple euthanasia attempts on rare occasions.

or is it a whole alive or dead situation... thus removing the poison and radioactive substance from the equation.

no-one knows if something is true unless you see it with your own eyes i suppose.

Originally posted by micpsi

Originally posted by KrzYma
reply to post by neoholographic

 

According to quantum mechanics' Supposition Principle, their quantum states ARE a supposition of undecayed and decayed states until the act of observation takes place. You are failing to distinguish between the possibility of decay and the actuality, which is what quantum mechanics considers.

Absolutely incorrect. More (actual) experiments have proven radioactive decay occurs with or without being observed, obviously. This is a classic case of being too smart by half.

reply to post by heathwithnoteeth


no, I think it is the way quantum physics came to life. If you don't know, you give it a quantum state and all is good for a while... simply said ( please difference between quanta as energy and quantum mechanics as believe )
but things are more complicated of course especially if you go into very small scales where anything you do changes what you want to observe and expect as result. we simply don't know for sure at the moment...

Originally posted by KrzYma
haha... Schrödinger's Cat

the observer has no influence on the experiment. If the cat dies it is dead, until observer sees it dead or otherwise.
this whole superposition thing describes just the leak of knowledge.
If you don't know you just don't know until you look at it,
but mathematics always have to solve a equation so you need some super symmetry or/and multidimensional imagination to solve the equation.

does the supernova exploded or not??
we will have the knowledge when the electromagnetic waves arrive here regardless if we look at it or not.
build an equation that includes that explosion you don't know about and you HAVE TO go to fancy superposition and multidimmentions to solve that equation witch will tell you,
yes... in this dimension it hasn't explode but in other it has, and if we will see it in our dimension it means we need another equation to solve this problem...

THIS is the first post that makes any real sense in this thread.

I believe that Schrodinger's Cat being a mathematical or thought experiment that cannot be easily solved is because it's impossible. It's childish fantasy. It's science trying to "play God" and explain the impossible because science is thinks so highly of itself that it believes it Must be able to figure out everything. Science stops being science at this point and seeks to be something it's not - God or if you like, a fantasy. Science fails to follow it own tenets. Math is a tool, but it is NOT perfect or infallible and cannot explain everything. it never will because there will always be parts of the puzzle that are missing. This is the true nature of reality.

Schrodinger's Cat mixes three very fallible systems together. Philosophy, Science and Mathematics. You will never be able to prove anything from this.

reply to post by neoholographic

I don't seem to know as much as you about this. So why is it that there has to be parallel universes if the experiment results are not observer dependent?

As I understand it, things are in superposition until observed. But my knowledge of these things is very lacking so I'm always confused about what "observed" actually means.

Its a thought experiment. I think people here are taking a lot of liberies with the original concept. I like to think of it in conjuction with the double blind test. The result in the closed box is opposite that of the observed box. If the cat is dead when you look at it then it will live forever as long as the box is closed.

Or shroedinger was just trying to solve the "no zone," where the inexplicably lost items go.

I took liberties there too..
Thought experiment, tied to whatever the newly most impressive theories of the day are.

reply to post by randomname

Does superposition exist in another universe?

How can somebody choose pop AND pizza at the same time without multiple universes?

Once the universe makes its decision, what's to be said about the other ones it could have made? Did they ever exist and do they still exist? Or did the universe just have a passing thought?

I don't know about quantum mechanics very well, so forgive me, really. What I'm wondering about is how can superposition be indefinable and yet arrive at ONE conclusion? Seems contradictory. If it's indefinable then it has no state beforehand and so how can it produce just one result?

If Quantum-ness is indefinable and has no previous state then how am I not ALSO indefinable, possessing no previous state? How can I be discrete if my foundation is not?

Since when do indefinable things produce definable things?

Unless of course there're infinite numbers of ME's in parallel universes? Thus the ME I perceive to be discrete is in fact an illusion created by my ignorance of the other universes.

The problem lies with the scientist wanting to write an equation where one factor is based on whether the cat in the box is alive or dead. He cannot know the variable until he opens the box. The scientist, too impatient to wait until the lid is removed alters his equation to factor in the two possibilities. The impatient scientist is content to allow his equation to consider a universe infinitely more complex, in order for his pet equation to work. Then he demands that you and I actually believe in his imaginary exponentially and infinitely complex multiverse, claiming that since his equation predicts it, it must be true.

Another consequence of a multiverse resulting from the infinite possibilities and choices one makes is that I should not be held responsible for any illegal, immoral, or evil action I take because in some other universe, the other 'me' chose to do the 'right thing' and thus created a branching universe where I was preordained to commit evil. Why punish me? This particular universe compelled me to act as I did.

reply to post by neoholographic


Would the cat not observe itself and cause a collapse... If I put you in a box with the same parameters... Would you know if you were alive or dead...

Once I found out that mathematicians and physicists use imaginary numbers to make their equations work I quit losing sleep over paradox's like Schrodinger's cat and the two slit experiment. I still enjoy the thought experiments but I don't believe they have any real bearing on the real world.

reply to post by neoholographic


My cats have always been in superposition (current one is a Cheshire)?

I can't see what is so special about his?

Oh damn, now its wave function has collapsed all over the couch.

Interesting thinking OP.....

I will read the thread in a few and come back if I have any comments...I'm sure I will.

Originally posted by KrzYma
reply to post by neoholographic

 

NO, it is in a state you don't know until you look inside. this state is NOT both!
you just call it a superposition because you don't know, leak of knowledge doesn't make it being both at the same time !!!

This post has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

You don't just call it superposition. Superposition is a confirmed aspect of quantum mechanics. It's not magic or some hypothetical. You don't just call it superposition. Superposition is the state of the Wave Function.

In the double slit experiment, if you shoot one photon at a time at the double slit, the one photon creates an interference pattern. Again, you don't just call it superposition, that's what it is. Quantum computers are built based on superposition.

So yes, it's in both states, you don't just call it superposition, it's in a state of superposition.

Again, Schrodinger's equation describes the wave function of say a hydrogen atom and it's eigenstates. We don't just call it superposition.

I really don't want to debate superposition because it's silly. Superposition is a well established and confirmed aspect of quantum mechanics. It's not something you call it because you don't know or whatever you said.

reply to post by MamaJ


Thanks and I look forward to reading any feedback.

The cat highlights the absurdity of stating a particle can be in many states at once. A DUH factor for anyone with half a brain. Unfortunately some physicists lose all sight of common sense when they have to say "I don't know". What they don't know is when the atom (in the cats box) will decay. They state that it is both and it is only when they "measure" it by opening the box the state is known. Needless to say this has resulted in all sorts of nonsensical theories........and all because they forgot that Schroedinger knew the cat was either dead OR alive but NOT both!

Everything is an observer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sharp intake of breathe. It is only people with obscure philosophical ideas who come out with the theories that sensient beings (ourselves) can only be observers and thus it is we that are the cause of multiverses which did not exist before we became self aware (Honest that is one of the wackiest idiotic theories ever).

Back to the cat. The atom has either decayed or not BEFORE the box is opened. The cat knows . . . if its alive.

Now:

Take a trillion boxes and a half life of 1 hour and I can guarantee that 500billion cats will be dead in an hour a further 250billion an hour after that and 125billion more after 3 hours of experiment etc etc. What I can't say is which ones.

Thats the macro/classical/large object situation

Take one cat and there is no way of knowing, with an hour to go, whether it will be alive or not. Worse than that the very act of measuring the atom to get every known property will in itself affect the atom and thus may change the outcome which we never knew anyway !!!

That's the quantum situation.

Given that that is what is happening can you now work out some of the other absurdities physicists toy with, again those physicists keep forgetting shrodinger KNEW his cat was alive or dead and instead use it as an explanation of the quantum world DUH!....oh and get funding....oh and publish articles in New Scientist

FYI, In theory, according to quantum mechanics, all the particles in the table you are sitting at could vibrate in exactly the same direction and thus the whole table could fly upwards. But if you remember the cat you will realise that would be the same as taking a trillion trillion cats and miraculously managing to pick every single dead one without opening a single box.

In theory you can win every single lottery in the world every week for your whole life and the odds would still be far shorter than the table leaping into the air.

This is one of those scientific theories that I think scientists tend to overthink..........we have to start accepting what is at what is and not what it is not.........some of you are going to give yourself and brain anurism lol