Avi_dreader said:

Might be a case of the Heisenberg principle: we can either know the question, or the answer, but not both!

Isn't that the one where I get to eat a cat in a box?

Edit: No wait... That's Shrodinger's... Oh drat... I'm uncertain :'/

::Eats a cat::

Schroedinger is about the maximum probability of having a cat in a certain region around the atom. We usually call it orbicat ::laugh::

Heisenberg says that if you know where the cat is, you don't know its speed, and viceversa

Julia said:

Hmmm.... And yet, these two principles seem like they can be combined as it's hard to know where a cat on an atom is, since atoms are so small and you'll probably lose track of your cat on an atom unless you were very meticulous about putting it in microscopic cage with only subatomic air holes. Hence you can not know exactly where your cat is, since being a cat, it's quite unlikely it stays in one place. Good luck finding your atom cat! It's probably dashing half way through the carpet by now. Personally, this is why I'm an atomic-dog man, they're easier to see and keep track of, even if they are more likely to be eaten by dust mites.

*Drops cat on Avi*

flamethrower49 said:

It's raining cats and cats!

earlier today I was talking to a friend of mine and he wanted to know if there was a flute of the inner gods

I should have let it go, but I asked him what it'd do... and he figured it'd summon all the monsters that weren't in his location to him

I just thought I'd share that... flute of the inner gods...

Shrodinger's Cat:

There's a cat locked in a box that is sheilded from outside quantum radiation. Also inside the box are a vial of toxin, a small amount of radioactive material, and a geiger counter. If the geiger counter detects a certain level of radiation, than the vial will drop, shatter, and the cat will die. However, after say, one hour's time, there is an equal chance (50-50) that the material will have decayed enough to give out the necessary radiation to trigger the geiger counter. IE: a 50-50 chance that the cat is alive or dead.

Now, in quantum mechanics, a bit of light behaves as either a wave or a particle. Or, if you'll pardon me here, a phaser (wave) or a blaster (particle). A continuous stream of light with a fluctuating frequency, or discreet individual packets of light that hit in such rapid succession it *seems* as if the stream is continous. Each interpretation is useful, so some scientists have gone with one interpretation that it is actually *mixed*, both a particle and a wave at the same time. However, when it is measured, you will notice it forming itself into either wave or particle, depending on how you measure it, but not both at the same time.

Back to the cat. So Shrodinger continues his example and says that, after one hour's time, the cat is actually *both* alive and dead at the same time (paroding light being both a wave and a particle at the same time) but when you open the box (measure it) then you'll discover that the cat is either alive or dead, but not both. He's using an extended example to point out the rediculousness of the situation.

awp832 said:

I disagree. Evidently Shrodinger disbelieves in zombie cats. And he calls himself a scientist ::rolls eyes:: clearly he's mad, but not mad enough.

Schrödinger's setup was thought-provoking, but his conclusion was absurd. He's assuming that there is nothing to collapse the wave function of the radioactive atom whatsoever. Steven Hawking was quoted as saying, "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun." I don't know if he was trying to be ironic.

magnumopera said:

"Inner gods" sounds like "inner circle" sounds like "drum circle." The Flute of the Inner Gods would probably sound like a Rusted Root concert. It would also probably pull all of the Children of the Goat out of the woodwork (no pun intended).