Similar to Schroedinger's Cat 
From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%F6dinger's_cat
Quote:
Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment devised by Erwin Schrödinger that attempts to illustrate the incompleteness of the theory of quantum mechanics when going from subatomic to macroscopic systems.
A cat is placed in a sealed box. Attached to the box is an apparatus containing a radioactive nucleus and a canister of poison gas. When the nucleus decays, it emits a particle that triggers the apparatus, which opens the canister and kills the cat. According to quantum mechanics, the nucleus is described as a superposition (mixture) of "decayed nucleus" and "undecayed nucleus". However, when the box is opened the experimenter sees only a "decayed nucleus/dead cat" or a "undecayed nucleus/living cat." The question is: when does the system stop existing as a mixture of states and become one or the other? The purpose of the experiment is to illustrate that quantum mechanics is incomplete without some rules to describe when the wavefunction collapses and the cat becomes dead or alive instead of a mixture of both.
Contrary to popular belief, Schrödinger did not intend this thought experiment to indicate that he believed that the dead-alive cat would actually exist; rather he considered the quantum mechanical theory to be incomplete and not representative of reality in this case.....
|
Fun stuff to think about
__________________
- + - ° GiRLie GeeK ° - + - °
01110010011011110110111101110100001000000110110101100101 Therell be days/When Ill stray/I may appear to be/Constantly out of reach/I give in to sin/Because I like to practise what I preach
Last edited by SiN; 04-11-2004 at 04:20 PM..
|