A man by the name of Erwin Schrodinger devised and proposed a paradox in 1935 that, if a cat was put into a container and poisonous gas released and the box was closed, would the cat be alive until you opened the box to witness the cat dead?
I wish to ask all of you, do you think that Schrodinger's theory is possible, or is it a bunch of crazy bologna?
I personally find it possible, after all you can't see it 'alive' even though it's dead until you would open the box, but then it would have to be dead.
I already addressed this, being that the cat is on a macroscopic level this already collapses the function. Or as Walker said quantum mechanics doesn't apply.
Not true, already done on macroscopic level. Proof:
Their accomplishment, however, has less to do with quantum mechanics than with an observation once considered experimentally impossible
And again, whether or not quantum mechanics apply on a macroscopic scale or not, we already know that a living creature cannot be both alive and dead at the same moment in time which is the nature of the debate regarding Schrodinger's theory. Quantum superposition cannot apply to the states of life and death and we already know that definitively. We can debate it from a philosophical stance until everyone is blue in the face but the simple, scientific fact is that a living creature cannot be both alive and dead. These states are mutually exclusive of one another.
Yes they are. These are states which can only be held by living creatures and these living creatures are not subject to quantum mechanics ergo an argument from quantum superposition is not applicable and to continue to try to make it so simply shows how little you understand of quantum theory.
It seems as though you are tackling this experiment with the assumption that you are more intelligent than Schrodinger himself. I don't like to assume things, but I think it is pretty reasonable to assume that Schrodinger was aware of the fact that cats are alive when he designed his experiment.
Such obvious loopholes as "quantum physics doesn't apply to life" would render the entire experiment moot. It would hardly be a biting criticism of the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI for now) if Bohr could just point out that flaw.
This incredulous claim implies that there is some mystical quality of life that exempts it from the CI. If the CI crowd came back with that answer, they would be the laughingstock of the scientific community (well, more than they already were). If life isn't described by QM, what is it described by?
Einstein and others could say that there was some fundamental hidden variable the accounted for all the flaws of QM. This wouldn't apply just to life-forms, but everything in existence. But the CI followers couldn't make this claim, because one of the main principles of the CI is that all functions are completely described by wave functions.
Therefore, according to the CI*, the cat is both alive and dead.
*Not myself. If you have problems with my understanding of the CI, by all means belittle my intelligence (though at least explain where I'm wrong). If you have problems with the CI itself (which appears to be the case), take it up with Bohr.
It seems as though you are tackling this experiment with the assumption that you are more intelligent than Schrodinger himself.
Actually I'm agreeing with the intended purpose of Schrodinger's thought experiment.
Schrodinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; quite the reverse, the paradox is a classic reductio ad absurdum
Schrodinger was trying to point out that the notion that a being could be both alive and dead was a ridiculous claim and that was the intent of his thought experiment. I don't claim to be smarter than Schrodinger, I claim to be in agreement with him.
Oh, and I might point out that Schrodinger's thought experiment was intended as a direct conversation with the EPR paradox which disagreed with Niels Bohr and the CI. So yes, again, I'm siding with Schrodinger on this one and I reject the CI of QM. In that I'm also siding with Einstein, Poldosky, and Rosen, the authors of the EPR Paradox.
To save you some time, I have also read the Wikipedia page, so citing it is not necessary.
Schrodinger was trying to point out that the notion that a being could be both alive and dead was a ridiculous claim and that was the intent of his thought experiment
No, it really wasn't. The intent of his thought experiment was to show how the CI concept of an observer changing reality was ridiculous. After all, originally the experiment featured a powder keg in a superimposed state of explosion and non-explosion until observed. Powder kegs aren't alive.
Schrodinger didn't just reject the notion of a dead and alive cat, he also rejected the decayed and non-decayed atom (until observed). Contradictions are all impossible; life is irrelevant.
The problem is, the CI does seem to get good results, even on a macro scale (linky).
I continue to disagree that quantum superposition is applicable in such an experiment. To take that to another level, and following with superposition, I am both sitting in my chair and not sitting in my chair at this very moment. That is ridiculous. I know I am sitting in my chair even though there is no observer to interfere with my state. Or even take it with sleeping. I fall asleep in my bed and remain in my bed regardless of whether that state is observed.
And to even take it one step further, with Schrodinger's experiment the cat would be an observer of the event and would negate the concept of superposition in and of itself, ergo the cat could not be alive and dead at the same moment. Many physicists have even noted that observation forces the object to take a single state and as a living entity the cat would be an observer and would negate superposition.
I am both sitting in my chair and not sitting in my chair at this very moment.
What is the probability of you not sitting in your chair, based on experimentation? Zero. So you're sitting.
Schrodinger's experiment the cat would be an observer of the event
In some forms of Schrodinger's cat, the cat is knocked unconscious first in order to avoid just such an issue. I don't care enough to look up if that was in the original experiment.
And I would tend to agree with Steven Weinberg who agrees that CI is ridiculous, or at least faulty at best, as well as with what Ken (from your link, and I'm a member on physicsforums as well) put from the text he was citing in that superposition only exists from the position of the observer. Again, the cat is not in superposition, it is alive until it is dead, whether or not it is observed. However if you have not observed the cat then the probability of it being alive or dead is 50/50, but your observation alone does not determine the outcome of the experiment, which is what I have been trying to explain to you.
