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Schrodinger's Cat?
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by Fluffylover
on 2005-06-17 15:42:37
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I've been briefly told about this phenomenon. Supposedly its something about a cat being put in a box and being able to be dead and alive at the same time. Can anyone clarify?
"Going to church does not make you any more a christian than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger."
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-06-17 16:30:28
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Schrodinger's Cat is a model in which to explain the principle of superposition in quantum thoery. Schrodinger stated that if you put a cat into a steel box with a a small enough radioactive material so that within one hour one atom might or might not decay and that upon decay there shall be a mechanism that will break a vial of cyanide killing the cat. Without opening the steel box within that hour we could say the cat is either dead or alive and is in fact both until we observe otherwise and that is superposition. Superposition states snice we do not know the exact state a particle is in, it is in fact all possible positions until observed. Superposition is also shown through the double slit experiment. When light is shown through one tiny slit into a dark room. it will form a single line on the wall oppisite of the slit.. but when there are two slits it forms a wave pattern of multipe lines slowly fading in intensity. This is considered particle-wave duality in which light is both a particle and a wave. Superposition is proven to exist in this by the fact if one would slow down the light source that only one photon passes the slits at a time.. that the wave pattern would be changed into just two lines as there would be no interfernce. But that was not the case, even when protons were released one at a time they still showed interfernce (the wave pattern) this is only possible if that the single photon was in multipe positions and thus interferning with itself. But when the path of the photon is observed completely the interfernce pattern dissapears and only two lines of light appear! Showing that Superposition isnt just a thoery but fact. This is a foundation of quantum thoery and also rather difficult to grasp.
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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by humblemonkey
on 2005-06-19 09:25:33
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| No kidding... I've read several descriptions about superposition and I still don't really understand it. That was enlightening, though. |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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Schrodinger's cat is DEAD!!! Link: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/science/6dff/ ;) |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-06-22 20:35:12
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Superposition is about all the positions a particle can inhabit which when a particel is free it is almost endless, but when while part of an atom and then a molecule and then a full object the position in which the particle can be in drops very very dramaticaly.. this is why the thoery of superposition outside of quantum physics cant truly be applied.. but it is still there. I forgot to mention that.... yay for complication
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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basically, it just tells of a gendakan or thought experiment. you have a cat in a box. also there is a vial of poison hanging over it. the vial is triggered by a random event, say the release of a beta particle by a radioactive substance. now this event is completely random and there is no way to know of it. now we can usually say that the cat is either alive or dead. but according to quantum mechanics the cat is bot alive and dead which makes no sense. it was a famous question proposed when qm was in its infancy. most believe that the reasoning is that one can't apply qm to an unisolated system under the influence of so many factors. the keyword is unisolated. if we were to isolate the cat so that it is not acted upon by any forces or consideration then qm will be applicable to it. then again, being both dead and alive, basically means sleeping, which cats love to do all the time. so we really don't need qm to tell us that if we put a cat in a box we will find it sleeping on opening it. :) |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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| Isn't is that Schrodinger pushes a button, one releases poison gas into the cat's face and the other merely releases air. The box is sound proof and airtight. |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-07-24 20:11:25
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well there are alot of situations that can help people visualize the thoery of superposition.. the original was the vial of posion.. but its the superposition of particles thats the important part
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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by space cadet
on 2005-07-25 16:29:51
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| The superposition of particles is a very interesting phenomenon, I call it this because it is proven to be true, but almost nobody knows exactly why it is. I call it interesting because it actually works under any circumstances, particles do not exist in a single place, they just have huge probability of being where-ever it is they are supposed to be, but there is still a tiny chance of them existing somewhere else. Extend this theory and it means that, since the universe is an infinate space, particles simply vanish and appear somewhere else, nobody notices, but this happens pretty often, take this even further and it means that if you left a marble in a bucket, for an infinate length of time, at some point the marble will abruptly cease to exist inside of the bucket and be outside of it. There is of course almost 0 chance of this happening, hence the infinate time span required. But this does mean that if scientists ever perfect chaos theory we'll probably have a teleport |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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by stoner4life
on 2005-11-06 12:35:32
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| i thought that that was the hiesenberg uncertanty principle. you cant know the speed and location because knowledge of one changes the other. correct me if im wrong |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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looking at stoner reply ..remind me of a statement .. u can never get a correct measurement of something.. as by measuring a "something",u r in fact disturbing it.. changing the results.. i wonder who said it.. was it hiesenberg ????? and i total like the part on particle-wave duality of light.. i think it does not apply only to light.. right ??
thOr
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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Alegedly his cat was one of the 8 that preferred whiskas cat food (uk cat food that 8 out of 10 cats prefer) Yakumo |
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Re: Schrodinger's Cat?
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Alegedly his cat was one of the 2 that didn't prefer whiskas cat food (uk cat food that 8 out of 10 cats prefer) Yakumo |