Saturday, October 26, 2019

Penny and Leonard as Schrodinger's Cat

So, in writing about the new Quantum computer from Google, I was going to use the Schrodinger's Cat analogy to explain Quantum mechanics.  But then something hit me.

First, the puss puss.

To explain how something can be in 2 states at the exact same time, Dr. Schrodinger has us think about a cat. The cat is inside a sealed box. The box has (in addition to food and liter) a radioactive isotope which will decay at an unknown point in the future. If / when it decays, it will trigger poisonous gas that will kill the cat.

Schrodinger used this example (but not a real cat) to show us that some point, unknown in the future, the isotope will possible decay and kill the cat. But, while it is sealed, we don't know. If the multi-universe splits, the cat will be alive in one reality and dead in another reality. We don't know which reality we live in until we open the box. The very act or looking at the cat will change the outcome. Until we look at it, the cat is both alive and dead.

This is not only understandable, but was actually used as an example in The Big Bang.


Now think of Penny and Leonard on the show. They dated in real life, broke up in real life, but got married on TV. So whenever we watched them we could attribute their interaction, either love or annoyance, as "real" and "fake" at the same time.


And this is because in both real life AND on the TV show they were often in love, friends, enemies, exes or agnostic towards each other.

 So, the act of observing them in that moment actually defined how they felt about each other. But in real life, or in the show? Or both? Or neither?

Was their actual relationship alive or dead? And, which was their "real" relationship anyway.

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I’m in Steamboat Springs - most posting begins on Sunday

 However, I had to post this. Everything is kind of poopy now (see no curse words). So I take humor were I can.