2005-08-05: Schrödinger's Cat

[Robert]

This next chat session will be held on Friday, August 5th at 11:00pm Central Standard Time (CST) also known as (GMT-6). We usually end after about 2 hours, but you may come and go as you please. You can use the timezone converter to convert to your local time. Once there, enter the day and time as specified above, then select US/Central in the "From Time Zone" column and your own location in the "To Time Zone" column, then click Convert. Be sure and unclick the "Use Current Date/Time" option. This will give you the time of the chat meeting in your own local time.

I have already converted the chat session to local time for the following locations:

Texas, U.S. - Friday, 11:00pm
California, U.S. - Friday, 9:00pm
Singapore - Saturday, 12:00pm
London - Saturday, 5:00am
Madrid, Spain - Saturday, 6:00am
India - Saturday, 9:30pm
Melbourne, Australia - Saturday, 2:00pm
New Zealand - Saturday, 4:00pm
Sweden - Saturday, 6:00am
Canada, Yukon- Friday, 9:00pm

This will be our tenth official ToeQuest chat meeting. Chat meetings are usually scheduled every two weeks using alternating times: Fri-11pm, Sat-3pm, Sun-7am (Central Standard Time). Since our community has 631 members from 80 countries, I use this schedule to reach the widest audience possible. All members are welcome to participate in the chat or, if you prefer, just listen in.

This chat meeting will be our second one using the new chat room ! When you click on the "Chat Rooms" option on the navigation bar you will now see a drop down menu with the new chat room listed as Flash Chat and the old one listed as Original Chat . Be sure to choose "Flash Chat".

Not many people were able to make the chat last time and I had a request to repeat it, so I thought I would choose a related aspect of Quantum Mechanics, the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment.

Schrödinger's Cat

The basic experiment goes like this... A cat is placed in a sealed box. Attached to the box as a device containing a radioactive substance and a canister of poison gas. The experiment is configured so that there is a 50% chance of the nucleus decaying in one hour. If the nucleus decays, it will emit a particle that triggers the device to open the canister of poison gas and kills the cat. According to QM the unobserved nucleus is described as a superposition of decayed and undecayed nucleus. It is only when the box is opened that the experimenter observes a dead or living cat.

The question is: when does the system stop existing as a superposition of states and becom one or the other? This experiment illustrates that QM is incomplete without some rules to describe when the wavefunction collapses and the cat lives or dies instead of being alive and dead at the same time.

This topic can lead us in a number of different directions. One path leads to the many interpretations of Quantum Mechanics of which the following are a few.

1. Copenhagen interpretation
2. Consistent histories
3. Many-worlds interpretations
4. Instrumentalist interpretations

The Instrumentalist interpretation is an interesting one. This is the view that QM and other such theories are only useful as a mathematical model or as an instrument to make predictions about phenomenon. Their ability to explain the corresponding reality is meaningless.

Please add your pre-chat comments to this thread. If you have any topics you would like to discuss, you might post it here ahead of time.

References:

1. Wikipedia -- The Free Encyclopedia
2. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat -- Amazon.com
3. Quantum Suicide -- I don't recommend this!

If you are a regular chatter, or interested in attending these chats, please send me three preferences - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice for day of the week and time. I'll try to hold future chat sessions at times when more people are likely to be present.

If you haven't been to the new chat room yet, better go check it out. I've heard reports of a chatter named Carly who likes to show up when you are the only person present!

Regards,
--Robert

[Guille]

Great theme, I hope people turn out.

I don't really have especial hours in which I prefer to chat, but, please, don't use again the one you are using for this one! 6 am is a bit too early, specially for summer vacations, in which I go to sleep nearly at that time, so I think I find easier not sleeping until 6 and then chat, than sleeping and manage to be ready at that time.

I'll try to be there, it depends on the amount of cafein in the 2 litres coke I will take that night. lol

[volantis]

The interpretation of Schrodinger's theory supposes that the underlying foundation is real. The underlying foundation is that subatomic particles exist as a probability function, as though material existence is a random occurance. This is in turn based upon the inability of modern science to pinpoint the exact location of a subatomic particle.

I show that subatomic particles are primary angular momentum. This means there is a thread of mass in the form of a circle, moving sideways through a quantum Aether unit, in one quantum unit of time. The effect is that the subatomic particle looks ghostly, like a pencil being moved back in forth in front of our eyes very fast.

According to the Aether Physics Model, the subatomic particle is not just the string of mass, but also its movement within one quantum unit of time. Thus, the subatomic particle not only spans a certain length, but due to its movement, also spans an area and a period of time.

This could be misinterpreted as a probability function, but when viewed in its proper context, the subatomic particle is actually discrete.

[dipayankar]

Good topic... I wanted a heated discussion on this. I hope I will get it this time.

[Guille]

Again I couldn't be in the chat session.


Please change the time robert, 6 am is way early for me (and even more in summer vacations).

What did you guys talk about?

[dleviwing]

Robert;
Here are some sites that cover the liquid electron state discussed on the chat.
Some cover both Fermi and Boson condensates.
http://www.answers.com/topic/condensate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_liquid
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/fermi_condensate.htm
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Fermionic:condensate.html

[dipayankar]

Somehow I haven't been able to get through to the chat transcripts. Can you please help me?

[Robert]

I just posted the transcript on the first post of this thread. I was unable to capture the first 25 minutes of the chat; sorry about that. dipayankar - I checked the forum permissions and you should be able to download the transcript. You just need to click the file in the "Attached Files" area at the bottom of the first post in each chat session thread and that should start the download. Let me know if you get any kind of error message and I'll investigate further.