Salutatio Relatif!
12-Mar-98, Relatif Tuinn wrote to Richard Meic
          Subject: Cat in the Box
 RT> Richard Meic discussing "Cat in the Box" with Nick Douglas...
 RM>> You may be correct, it likely doesn't matter, but for the sake of
 RM>> blabing I feel that we know what the radio active substance
 RM>> (radium, I believe, was proposed for the hypothetical experiment)
 RM>> does to a living creature, and we know how long it _should_ take
 RM>> for the cat to die of radiation poisoning under such
 RM>> circumstances. So, I think it would be safe to estimate when the
 RM>> cat should die and add another five minutes, and say " well the
 RM>> cat is dead", and then open the box to see the cat being quite
 RM>> dead. Besides, all one really had to do is listen for the cat
 RM>> howling in pain to subside to conclude that the cat is in fact
 RM>> dead,... ... then you could pull out that book called "101 Uses
 RM>> For A Dead Cat", and have fun for few hours after the experiment.
 RM>>  Not much uncertainty there, IMO.
 RT> Is this meant to be serious? I hope for your sake that it isn't
 RT> because if it is it means you've totally misunderstood what the
 RT> "cat in a box" scenario is all about and what the discussion of
 RT> this is all for
It was one point of view, you cannot expect anyone to give all their 
ideas in one single long post like Frank does.  ;)
 RT> The box is a hypothetical box. The cat is a hypothetical cat. The
 RT> experimental hypothesis is what Einstein liked to call a "thought
 RT> experiment". We are not interested in a treatise on how the cat
 RT> dies within the box IF the vial of poison is released by the decay
 RT> of a radioactive isotope. It is nothing to do with that whatsoever
 RT> The whole point of this thought experiment is as an an analogy to
 RT> what happens in the quantum world and to discuss the implications
 RT> of "observing" quantum behaviour and how that behaviour is
 RT> actually affected by our "observations" of it
It does, though.  The quantum world only comes into serious play on the
sub-atomic level.  The uncertainty principle involves observing matter
on the sub-atomic level, so if one was to observe (with whatever
instrument) a carbon atom one would be affecting that atom just by
observing it (ie. the only thing we could use to observe the carbon atom
is a stream of electrons, and that stream would effect the results).
Simply looking at a building collapse does not affect that building's
collapse... as Shrodinger seemed to allude to.
 RT> If you really want to learn about this then I suggest reading
 RT> something about it. "In Search of Schr”dinger's Cat" by John
 RT> Gribben (ISBN 0-552-12555-5 Black Swan) is a good non-technical
 RT> place to start
Read it.  I still hold the right to let my mind think what it wishes to,
thank you.
 Dicere...
 email address (vrmeic@nucleus.com)
Richard Meic
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