Stellar Horizons: Schrödinger’s Cat
Margarita is a Student Ambassador in Greece, leading a series of articles about Aerospace Engineering as part of her leadership project.
(No cats were harmed in Schrödinger’s thought experiment)
It’s been 3 weeks since the last incident, and Emma wasn’t over it. She couldn’t say anything to anyone; no one would believe her. Now, walking home from school, she decided to take a stroll in the park. At this hour, not many people were around. She walked around, thinking about everything-the café, the waiter, the napkin. She walked far away from prying eyes and decided to sit under a tree. She sighed and put her hands on her head. She looked down at the ground, the grass was short at this time, meaning Spring was starting. She smiled and looked up at the tree branches. That’s when she noticed a stranger leaf among the others. It looked almost like a star. She stood up, fixing her shirt before touching the strangely shaped leaf. In a matter of seconds-maybe even less- she was back at the café, in the middle of the galaxy.
“You’re back”, the waiter said, chuckling.
Emma closed her eyes, sighing. “Not again, there is no way. Not again!” she shouted to herself rather than to the waiter.
“Your fate is to be back here, Emma”, two voices heard. He was again in two places at once.
“You did that last time too….you called it…uhm….superposition….right?”, she crooked her head to the left, trying to look at both waiters at the same time.
Both waiters nodded. “Exactly”, he was merged back into one. He turned to look at the window.
Emma was puzzled and turned to look, only to be surprised to find a box floating around. It looked locked from the outside, though she could see that inside it, a cat was curled up purring, and a small, almost spherical object was placed at the top right.
She gasped, “That’s the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment!” she exclaimed. “I learned that at school, isn’t that about positions and being both alive and dead?”
“Not exactly, “You see, Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment illustrating quantum superposition where a cat is in a sealed box tied to a random quantum event. Until the box is opened and observed, the cat exists in a superposition-simultaneously alive and dead”. He pointed at the cat and the box.
“Though it’s not as easy and comprehensive as you might think.”
‘What do you mean?” she whispered.
He floated closer to the window, sitting in the chair next to her. “The experiment,” he began, “says that a hypothetical cat is locked in a box with a radioactive substance controlling a vial of poison. When the substance decays, it triggers a Geiger counter that causes the poison to be released, thereby killing the cat.”
“How are we supposed to know when it killed the cat? The content of the box wasn’t visible now. It’s impossible for us to know!”
“You are right!” he smiled and patted her shoulder.
“Since the box is locked and we are outside, we don’t know whether or not the radioactive substance has decayed and released the poison; we can’t tell if the cat is dead or alive.”
“So, until we open the box”, he continued…
“We can’t know for sure! The cat is both dead and alive,”
Emma interrupted.
“You are a good student, I see”, he shook his head. “Now to be fair, in quantum mechanics terms, the cat’s ability to be in an ambiguous state of both alive and dead until it’s observed (i.e., when someone opens the box) is referred to as quantum indeterminacy or the observer’s paradox.”
She nodded eagerly; it seemed like she wasn’t focused on how she got back to the café, but was astonished by what she was seeing and hearing.
“Okay,” she gasped. “That means that, this experiment...points out when the resolution of possibilities occurs?”
He nodded. “The experiment is intended to make people ask themselves if it was logical for the observation to trigger the answer. After all, wouldn’t the cat be either dead or alive even if we never open the box?”
He stood up, fixed his suit and tie, and looked at Emma.
She stood up fast and a bit clumsily, “When can I learn about the Multiverse theory? And I want to know about black holes….and time dilation and-”
“Emma, I can see that you are eager to learn more.” He looked at his watch, then back at her. “Dear, it’s not my choice when you will learn more, or what you will learn. I am here only to guide you to these theories and objects. I am only an educator, if you say in human terms.”
“The choice falls on the universe, and when she wants to call you back. Let her guide you, Emma. Let the universe into your mind, and let her open your eyes to the real world.”
The café began shaking and flickering; it was slowly fading away.
“Let her guide you, Emma!” “She is-”
The café disappeared, Emma was back under that tree, the leaf was no longer to be seen, and she checked the time. It was 3:00 pm, and not a minute had passed. Though it felt like billions of years had passed inside that café.
This article was written with the assistance of GenAI tools.