EmpirePedia

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by ZombieSlayer010, Mar 24, 2014.

  1. I'm bored.

    To the point where I teach w/o pay.
    Will be releasing a random fact of the day everyday.
    My source, and only source, in spirit of it's 'renovation' conducted by a university of students; I will use Wikipedia*.

    *I will dumb it down with some knowledge I've picked up around my life. I will at least post the wiki page

    3/24/2014
    Schrodinger's Cat is a paradox* created by Erwin Shrodinger; a European physicist. This paradox* states that if a bomb** is put in a closed box with a cat, and the bomb** has a 50% chance of killing the cat, when the box is closed, and the bomb** has been given it's opportunity to 'go off' the cat enters two states; one is dead, and one is alive.
    Page:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat

    *Some describe it as a paradox; some say it isn't. There are whole philosophies built around this paradox, or whatever you call it.

    **Some say his original idea suggests a bomb, others poison, ect. Again, it's all based on philosophy.
  2. \begin{rant}
    Uhm, no.
    First, Shrodinger's cat is based on a more scientific principle, Heisenberg uncertainty. Basically, a radioactive substance can decay at any time. In a "closed environment" the time, or the fact that it has yet decayed cannot be observed. For example, if I had a flower in a box, and I asked you to tell me if it were pink or orange, you couldn't tell me, because there is no way you could know. The same is true with small object, that is, you can't tell their state until it is observed. Shrodinger's proposed theory was that if a particle existed in an unobserved state, it existed in all states at once. Which makes sense, because a flower that you're not looking at could be red, or blue, or yellow, and all possibilities are just that, possible. Now, the interesting thing is that a particle can interact with its own states. Research the double-slit experiment, that's fascinating, but it basically states that an unobserved particle can interact with it's environment in all possible ways. As such, a particle that decays radioactively can have both released a particle and not at once. So, Schrodinger proposed that you put a cat in a "box" (Or a closed system which cannot be observed without "unclosing" it, or opening it), along with a device that detects radiation, and a poison that activates when the radiation is sensed. When the box is closed, there is no way to observe its contents (discount things such as the cat meowing, the smell of poison, etc.). Thus, at any one point in time, particle could have decayed, or not have decayed. And thus, the particle could have caused a reaction, resulting in the death of the cat. The thing is, because the particle exists in a juxtaposition of states, two at once, the cat must also exist in a juxtaposition of states, both dead, and alive.
    This is preposterous! A cat can't be both dead and alive at once, can it? It's impossible, a cat must be either dead or alive. Real objects can only exist in one of two states. And that's the goal of the thought experiment. Shrodinger sought to show that the Copenhagen interpretation of physics, that particles can exist in many states at once, is absolutely ridiculous! Despite being one of the founders of the theories that the Copenhagen interpretation is based upon, he still seeks to invalidate it. The experiment is often misinterpreted as a demonstration of the nature of particles, but it is rather an attempt at highlighting one of the ways in which particle physics does not, and can not, makes sense.
    In other words, not philosophy.
    \end{rant}
    Bristuhan, ISMOOCH and yankees518 like this.
  3. Good for you. The extent people go to,

    I did say people used other methods.
    I should add that you really should just look on the wiki because I have no idea what i'm talking about.
  4. Really, I take the time to read your posts.
  5. Meh just a boredom fighter. Why argue?
    zombieslayer010 likes this.
  6. Arguably, it wasn't there the first time. :p
    Also, I help edit the simple.wikipedia.org pages, fantastic for getting a thorough understanding of a complex topic.
    And when I say argument, I meant dissection... Probably rude, no? I'll delete it.
  7. Yes, is to me at least. Whatever.

    I know, right?