Schrodinger's kitty

[Ben Johnson]

Cat Philes

Cat stories, rain and other stuff

Schrodinger's Other Cat

  For the one person that doesn't already know, there was a scientist called Schrodinger. This character performed a "thought experiment" in which he put a cat in a sealed box with enough poison so that the cat had a bout a 50% survival rate. He claimed that since he did not know what the outcome before he looked in the box for himself that he could claim that the cat was both alive and dead at the same time and (and this was the big conclusion) that the observer effected the outcome of the experiment - because as soon as the interior of the box was examined, the cat would stop being both alive and dead, and instead by either one or the other. 
  At this point, Schrodinger's cat probably ran away in sheer terror that his or her owner could even consider the possible murder of a cat just to prove some useless bit of philosophy. However, this bit of scientific and philosophical history has been passed from cat owner to cat owner in a feeble attempt to explain how and why cats seem to be able to appear, disappear and re-appear again with amazing, if somewhat disconcerting ability. 

  Now the story of Schrodinger and his cat was not on my mind when I went to sleep last night. 

  http://www.flippyscatpage.com/schrodingersothercat.html

  "Amazing, if not somewhat disconcerting," indeed.
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