Posted on 08/27/2014 7:37:18 PM PDT by Sparklite
Schrödinger's cat is the poster child for quantum weirdness. Now it has been immortalised in a portrait created by one of the theory's strangest consequences: quantum entanglement.
These images were generated using a cat stencil and entangled photons. The really spooky part is that the photons used to generate the image never interacted with the stencil, while the photons that illuminated the stencil were never seen by the camera.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
I don’t doubt it. Got pix?
I’m having a blonde moment on this thread. Either the cat lives or he dies
I think the article is the plot for the next season of The Big Bang Theory. You open the box and get Soft Kitty, or Science Fiction Kitty.
SF Kitty would be either Frankenstein (From Red Dwarf, the grandmother of Catkind), or Data’s Cat.
Only Sheldon, or his memaw, Knows the correct answer.
As long as it’s not Kalashnikitty I’m good.
This is Bijou, the Maine Coon. Check out her 2 1/2" paws!
This is Kefira, the little rescue girl: 
“The article implies, if I’m reading it correctly, that information can be passed between the entangled photons. If so, it might one day provide instantaneous communication with spacecraft.”
I don’t think that is the way this experiment works. They take paired (entangled) photons, split the pair, shine one half on the stencil and let the other draw the picture. Both photons are moving at the same speed, the speed of light. The information BETWEEN the photons travels instantaneously, but the photons carrying the information are still only traveling at the speed of light. I suppose if you had a way of preserving the paired photons until one of them reached Mars, then you might use the one on earth for instantaneous communication.
Going still further: What causes a person to die in this universe doesn't happen in another universe = so we never really die, we are always alive in some other universe, thus we are immortal.
Perhaps someone should start a new religion or cult based on our quantum immortality? They might hold their meetings on a quantum day of they week and quantumly pontificate their messages to all the quantum universes.
Could it be that quantum physics is their first sermon to this universe? But we won't know until we ask them, and what if they then deny it?
We're so screwed entangled!
You made me get out of my comfy chair and take some aspirin.
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious."
- Terry Pratchett
Opening the box doesn’t DETERMINE the state of the cat, it only makes whatever state the cat is in observable.
Has anyone actually found a dead cat in a box? Put a live cat in a box. Open it up two minutes later, and they are always alive.
Author Unknown:
Schrodinger, Erwin, professor of physics,
Wrote daring equations, confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don’t worry. This part of the verse,
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton’d invented,
By Einstein’s discoveries had been badly dented.
“What now?” wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, “Don’t panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles,
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that’s not confusing, the nuclear dance,
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though, my theory permits us to judge,
Where some of them is and the rest of them was.”
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck,
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
Even Einstein had doubts, and so Schrodinger tried,
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, “Brother, suppose we’ve a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at,
Along with a solitaire deck, and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes,
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got ‘em,,
One vial, prussic acid, one decaying ottom,
Or atom - whatever - but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits,
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime,
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder’s sealed. The hours pass away. Is,
Our pussy still purring? Or pushing up daisies?
Now, you’d say that the cat either lives or it don’t,
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won’t.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, “Tough shit!”
We may not know much, but one thing’s for sho’:
There are things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons - you’ll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed.
Which ruins your test. But then if there’s no testing,
To see if a particle’s moving or resting,
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability. But certainty? Never.
The effect of this notion? I very much fear,
‘Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
“We’ve just flipped a coin and we’ve learned he’s a corpse.”
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, “You’re nuts.
God doesn’t play dice with the universe, putz.
I’ll prove it!” he said, and the Lord knows he tried.
In vain, until finally he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: “Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I’ll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he’s in heaven—but five bucks says he ain’t.”
LOL! First thing I thought of...
It's brought together physicists and non science oriented cat lovers together on one thread.
It's positively multi-cultural!
That might be possible someday, but with relativistic effects we will also be able to communicate with both the past and future. A quantum computer could tell us the answer before even ask it. There is some evidence that female brains can already do this.
A very well crafted line IMO.
You’re welcome.
The shame of it is having to post the article in ‘miscellaneous’ category because there is no FR category for science.
Awww! Thanks!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
