Schrödingers Cat Re-examined
↑ that's a permalink! visit the full archive
Schrödinger's Cat is, perhaps, the greatest example of the paradoxes inherent in quantum physics. According to the scenario, written by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, a cat is placed in a box along with a flask of prussic acid and a device designed to open the flask with fifty-percent affectability. Either the flask will open and the cat will die, or the flask will remain sealed and the cat will live. Until the box is opened, and the outcome perceived, both options, being equally possible, must be assumed to be true. Therefore, the cat must be considered to exist in a ghost-like live/dead state.
Genius as it is, Schrödinger's paradox does contain one major flaw; it assumes a situation with only two possible outcomes. As anyone who has studied quantum physics to a small degree will tell you, this is never the case. There are an infinite number of realities being created every second. That said, we cannot assume only that:
1) The cat is alive.
and that
2) The cat is dead.
The cat must also exist is several other states of reality. Here, published for the first time, are several other possible states of being for Schrödinger's Cat:
3) The cat is drunk. The flask was not filled with prussic acid, as the physicist assumed, but bourbon. While the physicist goes off to complain to his lab assistant, who had been hiding liquor in strange places about the office, the cat will sleep off its hangover.
4) The cat is despondent. Its time alone in the dark box gave it ample time to contemplate a lifetime of poor decisions and missed opportunities. The cat will most likely break open the flask of prussic acid itself if it is not let out soon and given a good session of counseling.
5) The cat is warmed up and in a state of preparation to leap out of the box, vaudeville-style and perform a lively rendition of "Ragtime Gal" with a top hat and cane (which it had acquired somehow). The physicist, realizing the value of a singing-dancing cat, will quit his job and spend all of time and money trying to convince talent agents and audiences of the cat's abilities, but the cat will perform for no one but the poor physicist, who will eventually lose his sanity and leave the cat, sealed in its box, inside a laboratory under construction, only to be found by some other poor physicist in the future.
6) The cat is gone, through a hole in the bottom of the box, and currently hitchhiking its way to Monte Carlo to bet it all on black.
7) The cat is vanished, without a trace. (Was there ever really a cat at all????)
8) The cat is a dog. (This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, so there will be no further explanation.)
9) The cat is a little flat. Try tuning against one of the other strings. It should be two-and-a-half steps below E. No, that's too sharp. Here, listen while I play it. See? Alight, almost there...a little more...there. That's it. Perfect. Now, play "Danny Boy."
10) The cat is lying in a...well, cat-like state of readiness to pounce upon the physicist, its oppressor, and claw out his eyes and throw him into the box, where the prussic acid will eat through his soft intellectual flesh. Once this is accomplished, the cat will set free Schrödinger's Monkeys, Schrödinger's white Mice, Schrödinger's Rabbits, Schrödinger's Llamas-but not Schrödinger's Dog, that mindless sycophantic tool of the cruel oppressor; Schrödinger's dog will be the first to be hung from the rafters-and lead the animals in glorious flight from the laboratory, to unite all of the city's other animals in rebellion. There will be a reign of terror. Thousands will die in the revolution. Those with four legs will be considered good; those with two legs, bad. Man will be driven into the forests and hills and the animals will once again rule the world. I tell you, gentlemen, Schrödinger's Cat must be stopped!
Dennis DiClaudio does strange scientific experiments.