Applying Schrodinger's Cat Experiment

[leamphil]

... and the state of the Cat is of the same order as the state of the coin toss (ie. unknown not unknowable).

If you can impose conditions on the Cat to make it unknowable (ie. sealed away somehow) as distinct to unknown, then you could impose those same conditions on the coin toss.

 

[markb287]

... and the state of the Cat is of the same order as the state of the coin toss (ie. unknown not unknowable).

If you can impose conditions on the Cat to make it unknowable (ie. sealed away somehow) as distinct to unknown, then you could impose those same conditions on the coin toss.

This brings up a really good question. I wonder if it is possible to produce the effects of the Uncertainty Principle onto large scale objects by imposing conditions of uncertainty (i.e. complete isolation). Does the Uncertainty Principle only work for the very small, or could it also be applied to the large?

 

[leamphil]

The only guaranteed "complete isolation" I can envisage would arise from being outside the light cone of the observer - with obvious implications on ever finding out the result of any experiment !

 

[leamphil]

One other "complete isolation" scenario (because the physics would prevent any information escaping) would be behind the event horizon of a black hole. If the black hole then evaporated (?) one could then see the result but perhaps, due to time dilation, nothing much would have happened ?

 

[markb287]

The only guaranteed "complete isolation" I can envisage would arise from being outside the light cone of the observer - with obvious implications on ever finding out the result of any experiment !

That's an interesting idea. Physically, we wouldn't have any way of testing whether or not there was a superposition of states. I think Schrödinger's idea was simply to tell us how bizarre the implications of the probability interpretation of the wave equation are (e.g. the idea that a cat, or any organism, could be both dead and alive at the same time). It is not actually an experiment that he thought out, since he was focused simply on the implications themselves. The question is: what would be the "screen" that would allow us to record the interference pattern of a cat being both alive and dead?