05 September 2012

Schrodinger's Cat Experiment: Mark I

As cultured and educated people, you are no doubt aware of Schrodinger's Cat. What you are probably not aware of is the distressing truth behind this famous thought experiment and the resulting cover up that has lasted for nearly 80 years.

Knowing the specifics of the experiment, you may reasonably surmise that Erwin was no great lover of cats. On first inspection, it may not be entirely clear why this may be the case. However, I will, in this post, theorise as to the cause of this.

We flashback 80 years to the early 1930s, where we find Erwin Schrodinger jetting between Berlin, Oxford and Princeton, and corresponding with one Albert Einstein about quantum mechanics.

Schrodinger had a theory that needed testing, that at some level, matter can coexist in different states. He had yet to make the leap that it might only apply at the quantum level. Picture the scene; Erwin sits in his office, deep in thought, when his cat Cuddles1 jumps onto his lap. It is there, scratching Cuddles idly between the ears, that he formulates the basis of that famous experiment.

Hang on, you're thinking to yourselves. Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment. It was never carried out for real. That may indeed be true, and I'm about to tell you why.

As we have already established your intellect and learning, I can assume that you are also familiar with Godwin's Law, which states that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1".

RocketBootKid's Law, which I am hereafter bequeathing to Mankind, can be stated in similar terms, thusly; "Over time, the probability of a cat owner being randomly attacked by their cat for no rational or logical reason approaches 1".

Back to Schrodinger. He and his cat are in the box, while Schrodinger ponders how the Observer Effect may alter the results of his experiment. The cat, being a cat and therefore experiencing the multiverse on a plane of existence completely devoid of logic and reason, suddenly sinks five of its six ends into Schrodinger's tender underparts.

Flashforward a few months, and it is only his dedication to scientific rigor that finds Schrodinger still occupying the box, when the better parts of him, his tender and now swollen underparts in particular, are begging him to develop a less painful experimental paradigm.

At some point, Schrodinger had a final falling out of love with Cuddles. The specifics of this event are wasted to the pages of history, but the ramifications for Cuddles are dire. Schrodinger, in a late-night manic episode, arrives at the specifics of the device with which we are now familiar.

His housekeeper, who services were suddenly dispensed with, would later comment that she hadn't seen Cuddles around for a while. Perhaps fearing a visit from the RPSCA, Schrodinger was careful to categorise the fate of Cuddles as a "thought experiment" when he published his theory in "Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik" in 1935.

In a museum somewhere, in a display case, is a box inside of which, most definitely, is a dead cat.

1 Schrodinger may or may not have had a cat, which may or may not have been called Cuddles. I think he'd be satisfied if I said all of the above were possible.

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