Thursday, November 29, 2007

A Schrodinger moment


I had me a little Schrodinger moment on the bus last week. I got on and sat down behind a woman who had apparently just come from the animal shelter. She had a closed cardboard carton on her lap that said ASPCA on it and had air holes all around. My first thought was, oh cool, she just adopted a cat. But then I thought, hmmm, is the cat alive or dead? It must be both! My god, there's a quantum superposition happening right here on the #11 bus! And there's no way to tell which state the cat is in until she gets home and opens the box.

Hey, It thought it was pretty funny. Of course nobody understood what I was laughing about.

7 comments:

BC said...

If that was my cat, she would havebeen letting you know that she was alive and wanted out. LOLOL

fermicat said...

I LOVE that illustration!!! And quantum physics. Oh yeah.

TheWriteGirl said...

Yeah, it's a great picture, huh? I snurched it from Wikipedia.

wa11z said...

I think the same thing about buses when they pass by. Are the people inside alive or dead?

ctheokas said...

But... wouldn't the cat know if it was alive or dead?

fermicat said...

Only if the cat can solve its wave equation.

ctheokas said...

Well, Fermi, it is a cat. So of course it can.