13 August 2010

suicidal kitty

Quantum Suicide is a thought experiment designed by physicists to defy laws of conservation of mass and energy and completely confuse people.  Basically, the experiment goes as follows:

A suicidal man (whom we'll call George) is locked in a room with a button.  Every time George pushes the button, a device measures the spin on a quark which is assumed to only have a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation which changes randomly.  This device is connected to a bomb that will immediately destroy the room and everything in it if the device detects a counterclockwise rotation but will only click if a clockwise spin is detected.  Quantum physics would suggest that no matter how many times or how often George pushes the button, all he will ever hear is a click.  "How can that be?" you question quizzically, "it seems as though there is a 50% chance George will become lots of little George-bits, which are slightly more tender and less salty than, but not as satisfying as, bacon-bits."

Well, here's the tricky bit: every time the man pushes the button, he makes a decision and for every decision made, the universe splits into parallel paths that account for all possible outcomes for that decision.  I know.  Weird.  Basically, if you were to observe the experiment from the same room, you have a 50% chance of becoming intimately familiar with a gut-pulverizing supersonic pressure wave followed by a flesh melting gas bubble and bone searing particle impingement experiment which would ultimately (very short ultimately) lead to your 'ceasing to exist'.  From George's perspective, all he ever experiences is pushing the button because his conscious obviously follows the split where he doesn't cease to exist.  It's really very simple.

So let's make it more complicated and add a kitty, Schrodinger's Cat to be specific.

Schrodinger's Cat is another physicist's thought experiment (I think physicists need to get real jobs or finish their Phds if they have enough time to think up fake experiments) which puts a cat (who we'll call Max) in a sealed box that has no external stimuli (i.e. you can't see, smell, touch, taste, hear in it or out of it).  In the box with Max are a Geiger counter, a vial of radioactive material, and some deadly poison for good luck.  If the Geiger counter detects any radioactive decay (leak from the vial), it will automatically trigger the deadly poison (not just any poison, deadly poison) which will instantly create a dead kitty much like Fudgy.  "Finally, a beneficial use for all those things in my basement!" you proclaim excitedly.

But alas, here we go with the tricky bit again…because there is no way to tell what state of aliveness Max is in, he exists in both states, alive and dead, until there is an external force applied (as in, someone opens the box because they're curious and don't understand the effects of potentially releasing toxic chemicals in their face).  Basically, until we look in the box, we have an undead dead cat, which I think is the exact definition of a zombie cat.

Let's recap: we now have Immortal George, who has devised the most complicated contraption ever for offing himself but still can't make it work, and Zombie Max, who is both alive and dead at the same time but as soon as you try to find out which is which immediately becomes one or the other.

So...what happens if Zombie Max is the one performing Immortal George's experiment?  Does he always hear a click AND always get vaporized?  Does he push the button AND not push the button at the same time?  Is he still found frozen stiff curled up under a tree stump by an impressionable group of young adolescents after 'visiting the neighbors' all winter AND happily frolicking, inciting the innocent laughter of children while chasing butterflies on the warm summer lawn? It's all very troubling…

1 comment:

Teresa said...

Your mind never ceases to amaze me, Justin!