Its Schrodinger's cat all over !

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
>> ^Thumper:

Uhh, That cat just died. Or it was badly hurt. Look at the view and things in the distance. This window is at least a second floor possibly 3rd


Dunno about what you see in the distance, but what i see is a corner wall and given the angle involved, i'd be forced to guess one up from ground floor. That's assuming the house isn't on a raised bit of land.

You also don't know whether there was a garage roof underneath, a pool, a pond, a little tree or bush, a kitchen extension... the list is endless.

I also feel like the reaction would be more significant if it had fallen a really huge distance. If they wanted the cat to die they'd want to film it, and if they wanted it to live they'd be desperate to see if it was ok.

>> ^shagen454:

The part about "looking" and nature deciding at that instant about the state of something is total bullshit. So, basically the entire theory falls apart for me right there.


Not sure whether the whole theory is bullshit to you because you can't understand it, or you won't understand it because you've declared it bullshit. They could both be true, sort of like a "superposition" of posibilities.

Unlike religion, however, a leap of faith is not needed. You don't have to believe in magic. On quantum levels, this IS the nature of reality, and can be (and has been over and over) demonstrated through observation, experimentation and measurement. As xxovercastxx implied, that doesn't mean we understand it yet, nor do we have to. But we can make predictions with the theory and test them, and the predictions prove out every time.

Then again, I hear neutrinos can travel faster than light nowadays. NOT predicted!

Your video, Schrödinger's Cat explained in a hurry, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 50 Badge!

>> ^MonkeySpank:

Hey buttass!
My computer is so fast it can run an infinite loop in 2 seconds, so I don't need your damn optimized O(n) sorting algorithm!
>> ^luxury_pie:
Well I use the chance to promote one of the newer sorting algorithms, which kind of use the "Quantum Suicide" principle. So here it is:
1. Shuffle your list randomly
2. If it's sorted now, stop.
3. If not, destroy the entire universe.
Reason: "Since the only survivors of this rather apocalyptic approach to computing will be in universes where the list was sorted after the first shuffle, it is quite efficient. Checking if a list is sorted requires n-1 comparisons, and I'm going to assume an entire universe can be destroyed in O(1), as it only ever has to happen once. Thus, bogosort becomes an O(n) sort algorithm."
http://www.mathnews.uwaterloo.ca/Issues/mn11103/QuantumBogoSort.php





Fourth law of bogorobotics:
"Don't give it legs."
You failed sir and must now handle your running computer alone. Farewell.

Hey buttass!
My computer is so fast it can run an infinite loop in 2 seconds, so I don't need your damn optimized O(n) sorting algorithm!

>> ^luxury_pie:

Well I use the chance to promote one of the newer sorting algorithms, which kind of use the "Quantum Suicide" principle. So here it is:
1. Shuffle your list randomly
2. If it's sorted now, stop.
3. If not, destroy the entire universe.
Reason: "Since the only survivors of this rather apocalyptic approach to computing will be in universes where the list was sorted after the first shuffle, it is quite efficient. Checking if a list is sorted requires n-1 comparisons, and I'm going to assume an entire universe can be destroyed in O(1), as it only ever has to happen once. Thus, bogosort becomes an O(n) sort algorithm."
http://www.mathnews.uwaterloo.ca/Issues/mn11103/QuantumBogoSort.php

>> ^syncron:

Wrong. Alive or dead is not a quantum state.

It is if the cat's being alive or dead is dependent on a quantum event: if the Geiger counter in the box detects radiation from the decay of the radiactive source, a mechanism will release the poison that kills the cat. In any case, Schroedinger intended his thought experiment to be a reductio ad absurdum of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and he never intended to present the idea of cats in quantum superpositions as a real phenomenon. It's a satire.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Actually, Gwyneth Paltrow's head is in the box.


But is she alive or dead?

Your video, Schrödinger's Nyan Cat, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Chaos Cat proves Schrodinger wrong...

I know this is long and off topic. I found it linked on a male friend's facebook page and found it interesting.

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-be
ing-maced/

I thought the combo of sex and science and violence might pique your interest, too.

This is NOT related to our previous exchange, except in the general sense of how it is different to be a man in our society versus a woman.

Hank writes:

"To be clear:

1. I am not arguing that Google should be treated like a sentient life form. If Google is alive, it's alive the same way a virus is. The fact that it's alive does not change its ethical status. It is very interesting though.

2. While I don't value the individual lives of the bacteria in my mouth, I value "life" tremendously and believe that one bacteria in a world otherwise devoid of life would be the most precious thing on that world. But seeing as how there are trillions of bacteria within four feet of me right now, I'm not particularly concerned with their welfare. So "life" is not a good qualification for "value."

3. I have done some further research and it appears that the Mrs. Gren thing is not so much criteria for life (though they are often referenced as criteria for life) it's more like "properties" of life...as we know it. I'm less interested in describing life than I am in determining what makes one thing alive and another thing not alive. Describing what we've got is easy, deciding the status of something that may (or may soon) exist is an entirely different matter.

4. I'm very interested in people's thoughts about about the "want" theory, though, obviously, this is a loose definition of "want." Does a plant really "want" to turn toward the sun...no. What I'm saying is more "reacts to it's surroundings in order to fulfill its needs." But "Life Wants" just sounds so much better. The question of whether Google (or fire, for that matter) is reacting to its needs in order to fulfill its needs is an interesting one, but I don't really think that computer programs "want." They don't have needs, they have instructions....but how different is that from the instructions that bacteria have from their genes?

Finally, Google does satisfy Schrodinger's criteria of increasing order using available energy. I think Schrodinger's criteria is, in fact, better than mine since you can't argue that fire meets it (as fire increases entropy) and it makes me feel as if Google is, in fact, alive.

However, using this criteria, one could also argue that an automated factor that turns plastic into toys is also alive, as it would be using energy to decrease entropy. If it is truly autonomous though, that almost seems as alive as a virus to me."

I think lots of people believe "high level science" consists of 3 or 4 ideas:

1. In Schrodinger's thought experiment, a cat in a box could be seen as both alive and dead until an observer collapses the waveform
2. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says you can't know both the exact position and momentum of a particle
3. General relativity states time slows and mass increases for objects at relative high velocity
4. Light's behavior exhibits a wave/particle duality, as demonstrated by interference experiments

Know those 4 things? Have you watched Star Wars once? Good, you're now equipped to understand pretty much all "oh wow that guy's a crazy brainiac nerd" humor. Somehow if you reference things like that, you get a pass to do a comedy routine without any jokes. You're stroking people's ego enough that they don't care you're not funny.

I think people would just get pissed off if he left the "nerd humor" script, though. People don't want to be challenged, or hear pop culture references they don't know. Anyone who's the tiniest, tiniest bit interested in Greek mythology knows Pandora opened a jar, not a box - but nobody wants to hear a joke involving Pandora's jar. They want the same reference that 1000 previous pop cultural references have prepared them for. They want affirmation that they're part of the special club that knows about stuff.

So, to do "nerd" humor the plan is to avoid anything actually nerdy. Stick to the most often recycled bits of pop culture and pop science, mix in some clumsy, senseless double entendres so that people know when to laugh, and you're good to go.

There are many models which have their own proofs. Without wave-particle duality, there would be not electron microscopes. One definition of a wave is the probability of a particle being at a certain time t. This is one topic where Einstein disagrees with de Broglie, who also disagrees with Feynman, and so on, hence the Copenhagen interpretation. They all agree on the differential equations behind the wave-particle model, but their interpretations of the equations are all in violent disagreement. Great topic though

>> ^offsetSammy:

According to Feynman's QED, there's no such thing as "wave-particle duality", it's just all particles. The behavior of the particles, however, is very strange, and that's what accounts for their wave-like characteristics. QED came after Dirac and Schrodinger (it was a refinement of their theories), so I'm not sure why it doesn't get acknowledged in these kinds of discussions.
QED also predicts exactly the results of things like the double slit experiment without ever resorting to the "well the wave collapses into a particle when we observer it" kind of thing.

According to Feynman's QED, there's no such thing as "wave-particle duality", it's just all particles. The behavior of the particles, however, is very strange, and that's what accounts for their wave-like characteristics. QED came after Dirac and Schrodinger (it was a refinement of their theories), so I'm not sure why it doesn't get acknowledged in these kinds of discussions.

QED also predicts exactly the results of things like the double slit experiment without ever resorting to the "well the wave collapses into a particle when we observer it" kind of thing.

Well, de Broglie couldn't get past the fact that in Quantum mechanics, the wave-particle behaves differently if there is an observer. Schrodinger's cat confused a lot of physicists, but it was there to prove a point. When people conducted the double-slit experiment, they confirmed Schrodinger's theory, de Broglie's wave theory, and Heisenberg's theory. Here's the cartoon version of the double-slit diffraction experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc&feature=related