Why Schrodinger's Cat?

Alright...GREETINGS INTERNET WORLD. Let me begin by introducing myself. They call me "Big Poppa."  Well, at least they should. I am a student at UNO(that's in New Orleans for those of you from Omaha) and that's all you need to know...for now.

I decided to start a blog for the simple reason--why not?--and I tend to do just that. Wait...WHAT!? Anyways.

The purpose of this blog is for me, the blogger, to share with the inhabitants of the internet what I really care about. Mostly you should expect some theories and/or rants...with the occasional artsy post thrown in here or there. So, I hope you enjoy and let this COMMENCE!!!!!!!

Why Schrodinger's Cat? Well, let us first talk about what is Schrodinger's Cat.

Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment developed by Erwin Schrodinger(get it, it's his name) in the mid 1930s. This experiment was to show that the quantum theory of superposition just doesn't work outside of subatomic particles. Hmm...perhaps we should touch on superposition as well.

Superposition is the theory in quantum mechanics that says that if an object(such as a particle or a cat maybe?) has more that one possible states of being, that at anytime that object can in exist of some mixture of those states. A simpler way to look at this is by looking at position(where is this object). High school taught us that an atom has a nucleus and an electron cloud. We were taught that electrons move around that cloud, but never really touched on where in that cloud. We can't see the electron due to its immense speed in such a small area. Measuring exactly where an electron is pretty much not going to happen. It's just too small and moving way to fast, not to mention that whole photon electron thing which I'll touch on in a later blog. But to help cope with the question, where is the electron exactly, the theory of superposition suggests that the electron is in every position in the cloud at once. This complies with experiments and tests conducted on atoms and does not seem to conflict with anything in quantum mechanics. Well, its a different story when you look at bigger things. And that finally brings us to that damned cat.

The thought experiment basically gives this case. Take a solid steel box. Inside the box, you place a cat and a mechanism consisting of a single radioactive atom, a hammer, and a flask of hydrocyanic acid. The radioactive atom has a 50/50 chance of decaying in one hour. If that atom decays, it will trigger the hammer which will smash the flask, therefore killing that cat(pretty gruesome huh?) Now, we as the observer can not know if the atom will decay, so we do not know if the poison will be released killing the cat. Now to the nitty gritty. The cat has two possible states, alive or dead. And we, the observer, will not know until we open the box one hour later having the cat revealed to us. According to superposition, that cat is both alive and dead because we can not see or possibly measure whether it is alive or dead, and upon opening the box and having the state of the cat revealed to us, only then will the cat come to either alive OR dead.

Basically, superposition says that because we can't see something, it remains in all possible states until we can accuratly see otherwise. Of course you're asking how something can be alive and dead. Well, this theory that actually has math supporting it works on a subatomic level, but just doens't make sense at a larger scale. Thus bringing us to the whole issue involving the Grand Unified Theory.

And now I can finally say "Why Schrodinger's Cat?"

I chose this title because I felt that it truly captures how my mind works. Paradoxes do take up much of my time, and things like this just make me think WOW. And I don't mean World of Warcraft.

Well, I hope people read this blog and think long and hard...or at least think for a little while. And soft I guess? But I do hope someone will read this and give a comment or two. Whether you liked it, hated it, agreed...anything really.

Until next time, "live long and prosper."