Don't Shoot Me Santa

Bugger Schroedinger

I intended to write about something that had been bugging me for awhile. It's about a cat. Schroedinger's Cat.

It's a theory about a cat in a box with poison set to go off at a certain time (something like that lah). And since they are no external observers, the cat is thought to exist as both dead and alive.

At first I thought it was pretty interesting.

Then I read up about it. Apparently even Einstein backed this theory.

Whoa, I thought. And then it got me off on deep thoughts on states of matter and existence and all that stuff. Also they were using words like quantum decoherence and hydrocyanic acid.

Cool or what right?

Then I really thought about the practical application of this experiment.

Then I realised that either

A) Einstein and the rest of these super-intellectuals are serious bozos

or

B) I had completely misunderstood the point of the experiment.

because to me, obviously, THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY THE CAT IS IN A STATE OF DEAD/ALIVE/ZOMBIFIED. Like what the hell.

Like no matter how intellectual you want to seem, coming up with a theory that says a cat MAY exist in a state of neither-here-nor-there just because no one is there to see it does not in the least make it possible or you look any smarter.

Say you walk in a dangerous jungle full of poisonous snakes and rotting trees. You are alone. You may get bitten by a snake, eaten by an unknown hungry animal or, if you really have crappy luck, have a decrepit tree fall on your head. OR you may not. Do you then walk around half dead/half alive? So if no one is looking, all of a sudden are you zapped into a semi-human state?

Anyway, I then realised it's explaining something to do with quantum mechanics. Of which I know nothing of. Absolutely nothing. So I also realised that the experiment had nothing to do with practical application, because (I hope to God) Einstein and Schroedinger could not possibly be that full of themselves. Which meant I didn't understand anything about The Cat. The words they used started to scare me. For example, quantum mechanics. Superposition. Thermodynamically irreversible. Wave function collapse.

I felt like I was reading the script for star trek or something. Except this was actual stuff that people study.

Boy do I feel sorry for those people.