Forums → WEPR → Schrodinger's cat

I believe the theory was actually that the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously until the box is opened to determine otherwise. I could be wrong though, it's just what I've heard. But yes, the theory is sound. A much more scientific way of answering the question about the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it, and fairly useless in practice, but sound nonetheless.

Haha, you are correct.

My point is, if this could be possible, imagine what else could be possible.

For example, a cookie is eaten but also uneaten.

Many more things could be a given.


Imagine, in our universe my uncle is dead, but in another hes alive.


Or that when you go to look for something, it isn't there because your looking for it.

Well, the cookie thing doesn't work because you are witnessing it being eaten. Or whoever is eating it is, anyway. And when you bring multiple universes into account, absolutely anything and everything is theoretically possible. I mean, even with one universe and a basic knowledge of quantum mechanics and theory, a whole lot of things that "normal science" would call impossible suddenly get upgraded to only being extremely extremely improbable. The world is a crazy thing.

Haha yeah.

I personally think heaven and hell can even be brought into this, perhaps Heaven and Hell are the same place as Earth just there own dimensions, branches of Earth and you can only attain entrance by death, thus leaping or branching to the other dimensions depending on your actions in our dimension.

I would be direct and say if you put poison gas in a box and a cat was inside, you're a cruel man

But in real terms, if it was poison gas, the cat would be dead no matter if you looked inside or not. It also requires time. Would you look in 5 minutes later, or 5 hours later? What kind of gas?

In philosophical terms, the cat could either be dead or alive, depending on how you look at it. It could technically be alive, it could technically be dead. The only way you would find out is if you look inside.


*Waits for Moe to come out of non-existence and posts something philosophically*

The real experiment was not nearly as straightforward as putting a cat in a box and putting poison in the box. Referencing the Wiki article, because I have nowhere else to go:


Here it is.

"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts."

Basically in the actual experiment, the probabilities are arranged in exactly the right manner that there truly is no concrete way to tell if the cat is dead or alive without opening the box, so until you do so, the cat can be said to be both.

I see it like this: If you're innocent until proven guilty, you're alive until proven dead.

@T3hLemming: Nice find sir. That is the problem with probability,concidence,fate and any other supposed 'roven' fact.


In that, just because you would assume the cat is dead or just because the cat should be dead, does not mean it will be dead.

I see it like this: If you're innocent until proven guilty, you're alive until proven dead.

I remember when I was younger I had a idea for a paradox, which I called the Infinite Thought Theorem. I even made a email on it, but because of my poor memory I can't even remember it now. >.>


I love the idea behind paradoxes personally.

There are only two problems I see with the Schrödinger's cat experiment. First of all for the indeterminate state to occur you need no one to observe the event. But even in the best of conditions for this experiment there is always still one observer left, the cat.
The second problem I see with this experiment is that it deal with the properties of quantum mechanics. The laws of quantum physics break down at the macroscopic scale. (unless your in something like a black hole) So being the cat is on a macroscopic scale the laws that would allow it to be in an indeterminate state should collapse.

It was a thought experiment nothing to be taken literally. It's all possible thought infinitively unlikely. If anyone has prior knowledge of the two slit experiment will know something big larger than an electron has a bigger footstep in the world thus the wave function breaks down. Also by being an observer you break it down too.

I believe in Many-worlds interpretation which resolves the paradox nicely by saying both states occur at the same time and that the universe branches out at that point.

There are only two problems I see with the Schrödinger's cat experiment. First of all for the indeterminate state to occur you need no one to observe the event. But even in the best of conditions for this experiment there is always still one observer left, the cat.

The second problem I see with this experiment is that it deal with the properties of quantum mechanics. The laws of quantum physics break down at the macroscopic scale. (unless your in something like a black hole) So being the cat is on a macroscopic scale the laws that would allow it to be in an indeterminate state should collapse.

We could discuss this theory over and over and prove ourselves right and wrong at the same time.

Or we could actually test it out....

Does anyone have a cat that they're no longer using?