They were used in Einstein's examples and of course the famous Schrödinger's cat, domestic cats are an inspiration to scientists
Martin Flinders was a British explorer and explorer, who lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was one of the greatest navigators who ever sailed. In 1793 Flinders was sent to explore and map the mysterious new continent in the South Pacific: Terra Australis. It was an extremely dangerous voyage, in unfamiliar waters and full of obstacles. Only the best and the elite survived such journeys.
During the voyage, a small cat was born on the ship: a black cat with snow-white paws and a white spot on his chest. In one of the jolts, the ship suddenly tilted, and the young cub overturned and fell into the water over the side. No one was, of course, willing to risk themselves to jump after the poor cat - but the animal demonstrated amazing survival skills when it swam, against all odds, and managed to climb a rope dangling from the side of the ship.
Martin Flinders noticed the cat, and knew how to appreciate the fierce desire of the little creature to fight for its life. He, and the rest of the crew, adopted him as the official cat and mascot of the ship, gave him the name Trim and he accompanied the daring explorer in all his dangerous and difficult journeys. Trim managed to survive even when Flinders' ship was wrecked on the rocks far from any settlement, in the heart of the great Australian coral reef, and the crew managed to escape with great difficulty.
The dangers to Flinders and Trim were reflected not only from the forces of nature. When Martin sailed back to England to report his discoveries to the British Admiralty, his ship was damaged and he had to stop on the island of Mauritius which was under French control. Remote from Europe and its politics, Flanders did not know that France and England were at war. In Mauritius, Martin was accused of being an English spy, and thrown into prison along with Trim the cat. With no choice, Martin gave Trim to a local family on the island, as his imprisonment was very long: six and a half years. The local governor was personally at odds with him, and imprisoned him even though the French government confirmed that Flinders was a scientist and not a spy. One night, Trim disappeared from the foster family's house and was never seen again. Flinders, who regretted the loss of his little friend, assumed that the cat had been caught and eaten by hungry locals.
When Flinders was released, he returned to England where he wrote a book about his travels and gave the new continent its current name: 'Australia'. He did not forget Trim, and wrote a dedication to him that is still engraved on a plaque next to a life-size statue of Trim cast by the Australians, in Sydney:
"In memory of Trim: the best and most celebrated cat among the members of his breed.
The most affectionate of all friends, the most faithful of all servants, and the best of all creatures.
He traveled around the world, circumnavigated Australia by boat and was a pleasure for all his fellow travelers."
Cats have accompanied humans throughout history, since they were first domesticated thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians adored the cat and its character and even worshiped it. When a cat died, Egyptian law commanded its owner and household members to shave their eyebrows as an expression of mourning. The cat's body was wrapped in a linen cloth and placed in a fancy coffin and sometimes it was even fully embalmed, an honor that was usually reserved for the aristocracy. The penalty for killing a cat was death. In the testimonies of visitors to Egypt from the first centuries BC, it is said that at the sight of a sick or injured cat, people used to flee the place, for fear of being mistakenly accused of harming it.
If black cats began their journey as members of the image of the Egyptian goddess of fertility and love, why have they become symbols of bad luck nowadays?
The fortunes of cats were reversed in medieval Europe. The Christian government sought to uproot the pagan beliefs in idols, and under its influence the black cat was seen as the embodiment of Satan. Elderly and lonely women used to, as is customary even nowadays, raise cats in their pavilion. In many cases, these women practiced folk medicine, and many turned to these "witches" to cure them of their troubles. The Christian leaders saw this as a threat to their religious authority and therefore persecuted the witches, as well as the cats they raised.
About two hundred years ago there was a change in the attitude of Europeans towards cats, with the decline of the church and the flourishing of humanism and the Renaissance. Only then did people begin to appreciate the cat's fascinating biological properties. For example, cats see six times better in the dark than humans and they always fall on their feet. The reason for this useful landing talent, by the way, lies in the cat's developed instincts that allow it to quickly know which way is down and which is up. This fact, together with wonderful flexibility, allow the cat to turn its head and neck in the right direction, and the legs follow this movement and align in the direction of the fall. However, the twisting movement in the air requires time for its execution - a cat that has fallen from a height of less than one and a half meters will not have enough time to turn around and land on its feet.
Cats are color blind - but only partially
Contrary to popular belief, cats do see colors, but they are partially color blind: they cannot distinguish between green and orange. Cats love to smell and chew, parsley, grass and common catnip or by its foreign name "catnip". It is estimated that between 70 and 80 percent of cats react enthusiastically to the plant, and it causes them a trance-like experience of pleasure and cheerfulness... the intensity of the reaction varies from cat to cat. The effect is short-term, usually 5-20 minutes. After enjoying the effect of the snuffer, the cat is unable to respond to the smell again for about an hour.
The unique features of cats and their individualistic nature have fascinated thinkers, inventors and writers throughout history. Einstein used cats to explain the difference between a regular telegraph and a wireless telegraph. A normal telegraph, Einstein said, is like a very long cat with its head in New York and its tail in Los Angeles - if you pull the tail in Los Angeles, the head howls in New York. Wireless telegraphy is the same, only without the cat.
Schrödinger's cat
Another great physicist whose name is associated with the cat is Erwin Schrödinger, one of the key figures of quantum theory. He developed the Schrödinger equation, perhaps the most important equation in quantum theory, and thanks to his work he also received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.
But Schrödinger's scientific abilities were overshadowed by a personality that was both fascinating and problematic: he loved women, perhaps even too much. He lived in the same house with his legal wife and his lover, and even found time to conduct two scandalous love affairs in Ireland, with two of his students - who also conceived him.
The unusual personality of the genius physicist is also reflected in the scientific field, and in the opinions he expressed regarding controversial topics in quantum theory.
One of the key principles in quantum theory states that every action or phenomenon has a probability. For example: a radioactive atom can decay and release dangerous radiation, or it can remain unchanged. There is some chance here and there that this breakup will happen. When we observe this atom and measure it with the sophisticated means at our disposal, we can know for sure whether it has decayed or not. But what happened before we measured it? What was the state of the radioactive atom until the moment the scientist came and looked at it?
The prevailing hypothesis among senior scientists such as Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg was that until the moment of measurement, the atom was in an undefined state: in other words, it had both disintegrated and remained intact.
It's hard to imagine it in your head. If this sounds strange to you, you are not alone. Erwin Schrödinger also opposed this idea, despite the fact that there were quite a few scientific experiments that supported this hypothesis. To show how ridiculous the idea of observation is, Schradniger published a theoretical paper in which he raised the following imaginary possibility: suppose we take a cat and put it in a sealed box. Inside the box there is a device containing one atom of radioactive material. The radioactive atom is attached to a hammer next to a capsule of deadly cyanide poison: if the atom decays, the hammer falls, the capsule breaks and the cyanide disperses inside the box.
We will close the cat and the device for one hour. During this hour the atom can continue to behave normally - then the cat lives - or it can also disintegrate - that is, the cat dies from cyanide poisoning. Einat, our researcher, claims that it is likely that Schrödinger did not own a real cat, because only someone who does not have a cat can imagine such an experiment. In any case, if the idea of observation is correct, then until we open the box and examine the situation for confirmation - the atom is in the intermediate state: both intact and disintegrated. Hence, the cat is also in an intermediate state: both alive and dead, (or neither alive nor dead, depending on your worldview). The idea of a stressed cat is ridiculous, since we know from real experience that cats cannot be both dead and alive today. A dead cat is a dead cat: passed on to the next world, ceased to be, expired, went to meet its maker. Cat-ex.
The problem that Schrödinger posed to his fellow physicists is not easy to digest. There is no real and agreed solution to this problem, and each scientist can have an independent point of view on it. There are those who believe that two parallel universes are created, in one the cat is dead and in the other alive. Others believe that all the strange phenomena that arise from quantum theory are irrelevant to objects as large as a cat.
Science fiction and fantasy writers have also offered original solutions to the riddle of Schrödinger's cat. Ian Stewart in his book 'Flatterland' describes the cat leaving the box at the end of the experiment, and he - I mean, the cat - is still not sure if he is alive or dead. Terry Pratchett introduces in one of his books a cat named Gribo, who has one eye and a particularly nasty character. When Grebeau finds himself inside Schrödinger's experiment box, Pratchett claims that the cat is in one of three states: alive, dead, and maddened.
(The article is taken from the program 'Making History!', a bi-weekly podcast about science, technology and history at www.ranlevi.blogspot.com)
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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To the lion and the cool:
Hidden variables were a possibility that was considered until Bell's theorem and experiment came along and disproved that possibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_Theorem
The cool commenter - take a good book on quantum theory, or maybe you already have. The questions you raise are also raised by the physicists. In response to Einstein, one can say - God plays with dice and how. Probability does not describe reality, but reality is probabilistic, at least at the particle level. Hidden variables is really one of the interpretations of quantum theory - but as you say - we really don't know. No matter the interpretations - the main thing is that the Torah works (all its calculated predictions are realized in reality).
The whole problem with this idea is the definition.
What the hell is measurement? Is it when I/the computer registers? Is it when I "know"?
And what is this supposed to mean "human consciousness"? The cat doesn't have enough consciousness to cause the superposition of the experiment to collapse?
I support Einstein's statement "God does not play dice"
It is strange to believe in probability as a theory that describes reality itself and not just the calculations and "mathematics" in it.. It is much more tempting to believe that there are hidden parameters that we do not know about yet.
Sometimes it is much wiser to admit ignorance (temporarily) than to include ignorance as something known and absolute.
It happened again.
The computer I'm using at the moment has gone through some kind of trauma that will cause it to crash.
The previous comment is mine.
The interpretation according to which Schrödinger's cat is in superposition is the one that requires human consciousness for the experiment to be decided.
This interpretation is not accepted today and most scientists are content with the fact that a measurement - whether it is observed or not - results in the collapse of the wave function.
According to this interpretation, the cat will never be found in superposition since the device that checks if the atom has disintegrated performs a measurement and therefore the wave function collapses.
By the way, even if someone believes in the interpretation that requires consciousness in order to collapse the wave function, he must ask himself if the consciousness of the cat is not sufficient for this purpose.
Be that as it may, today we no longer need to speculate.
Everyone who reads this site knows that Schrödinger's cat is actually a cat and not just any cat, but one that has commented here several times and said sensible things.
Enough with cat abuse!!!