Salutatio Nick!
08-Mar-98, Nick Douglas wrote to Richard Claypool
          Subject: Cat in the Box
 ND> There's a debate about the probability of whether the cat is deat,
 ND> and whether it matters at all You see, there was a radioactive
 ND> isotope placed inside the box with the cat. There was also a vial
 ND> of poison that would kill the cat if an electron from the isotope
 ND> hit it. There was a 50% chance of that happen ning. Who was it
 ND> that proposed this experiment?
Shrodinger(sp?).  The "hypothetical" experiment is known as Shrodinger's
cat.  The experiment (to my knowledge) was never done, only
hypothesized.  There was a lengthy theoretical battle between
Shrodinger and Einstein, and I fail to remember who the victor was if
there indeed was a victor in that debate.
 ND> Anyway, the theory was that the two
 ND> probabilities battled with each other until it was known what
 ND> happened. I don't see why it matters, since once we knew what
 ND> happened, the other probability wouldn't exist Nick Douglas,
 ND> newbie extraordinaire
You may be correct, it likely doesn't matter, but for the sake of
blabing I feel that we know what the radio active substance (radium, I
believe, was proposed for the hypothetical experiment) does to a living
creature, and we know how long it _should_ take for the cat to die of
radiation poisoning under such circumstances.  So, I think it would be
safe to estimate when the cat should die and add another five minutes,
and say " well the cat is dead", and then open the box to see the cat
being quite dead.  Besides, all one really had to do is listen for the 
cat howling in pain to subside to conclude that the cat is in fact 
dead,... ... then you could pull out that book called "101 Uses For A
Dead Cat", and have fun for few hours after the experiment.  Not much 
uncertainty there, IMO.
 Dicere...
 email address (vrmeic@nucleus.com)
Richard Meic
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