Cat in a box
Schrodinger knows
Alive or dead?
It will still have
Eight lives left
Quantumly…
Cat in a box
Tag: Quantum
Light
What is light? It’s photons that are little packets of visible energy. They don’t weigh anything, they are quanta (a tiny quantity). There have been different ideas about light, whether it is made up of waves or particles (called a wave particle duality). Probably the most interesting physicist to read is Richard Feynman, he died several years ago. But his book QED, quantum electro dynamics was quite good in helping me understand it slightly (its too complex for me). I liked his diagrams which helped to visualise the ideas….. Anyway that’s another random thing I’m interested in…
Cat in a box
What would Shrödinger say about my cat in a box? Curled up, unaware of the conundrum? What is the thought experiment? If I can remember it rightly…. A cat is in a sealed box, no one can see what is happening with it. Also in the box is a poison is in a sealed canister which can only be released by the radioactive decay of a chemical reaction, releasing an electron. You can’t tell when or if it will be released. The cat is therefore maybe alive or dead, but you don’t know until you open the box….
It’s a weird way of explaining quantum mechanics, but I don’t understand it very well!
Uncertainty
Watching a programme about gravity and quantum physics. The very big and the very small…
Hard to follow. There is apparently a fundamental problem in our understanding of the universe. General relativity explains Stars and galaxies. Quantum mechanics explains Atoms. But when you get to black holes the laws of nature fail.
Today Nasa published the very first image of a real black hole. Before today any images were just illustrations or mock ups.
The singularity at the centre of a black hole is apparently the same sort of thing as the singularity at the beginning of the universe.
The programme shows how something called quantum gravity explains the universe. Now we have seen a real black hole they may be able to take the theories further.
I’m leaving this now. I don’t understand!
Quantum cats…
Everything is ‘Quantum’ these days, its a word used for cleaning products, sci fi programmes, batteries….
Quantum, meaning tiny packets of energy, such as a quantum of light or electrons.
I’m no physicist or chemist but it does interest me. A few years ago I read a couple of books by John Gribben, “In search of Schrodingers cat” and “In search of Shrodingers kittens”.
See Wikipedia for information about Erwin Schrodinger. I tried to post a link but it would not copy over.
The idea is a thought experiment where a cat is placed in a box and a radioactive source is used to determine whether a poison will be released into the box killing the cat. There is no way of telling if the cat is alive or dead unless you open the box….. the cat is in a duality of states in the thought experiment, neither alive or dead until an outside influence, ( you or me) open the box to determine what has happened.
Seeing the cats this morning reminded me of the books.
Apparently electrons can become entangled and then even if they are separated by the entire universe, they will still react at the same time if something happens to one of them….Einstein called it a spooky reaction at a distance, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact quote. But it showed that something was moving faster than light to make this happen. I don’t understand half of what was being explained but that is no reason to not try and understand, if you see what I mean.
Other authors and books to read?
Richard Feynmann, “QED”…stands for quantum electro dynamics. ( hard going and I didn’t understand much of it)
Feynmann wrote several books “Surely you are joking Mr Feynmann” is a wonderful autobiography and gives an inkling of what quantum mechanics is about.
I would write more, but my knowledge is too poor. However I hope I have tickled your thought-buds?!
(Apologies to scientists out there for this rather sketchy blog post)
Mallaband-Brown 