Schrodinger's Gat Read Online Free PDF Page A

observation.” In other words, the experiment amplifies the scope of the quantum weirdness so that we can experience it on a macro level.
    The funny thing is that Schrödinger ’s cat has become sort of the poster boy for the weirdness of quantum theory, but that isn’t how Schrödinger intended it at all. He was trying to point out that quantum theory, if taken literally, is absurd. He was trying to show that quantum theory couldn’t possibly be right (or at least it couldn’t be the whole story), because the idea of having a cat that’s both dead and alive is ridiculous. But quantum theory has proven so reliable that physicists have basically just accepted that a cat can be both dead and alive simultaneously. I get the impression from Tali that most physicists these days try not to think about it too much.
     
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    “So what does any of that have to do with coin tosses?” I ask. “Are you saying that when the coin is in the air, it’s both heads and tails until it lands and you observe it as one or the other? Just like Schrödinger’s cat is both alive and dead until you open the box?”
    She shakes her head. “Coin tosses are mostly deterministic, like everything else. “The result of the coin toss is determined almost entirely by forces known to classical physics. How hard you flip the coin, the angle and orientation of the coin at its starting point, atmospheric conditions, et cetera.”
    “ Mostly deterministic. Not completely deterministic.”
    “ Right. Nothing is completely deterministic, because underlying everything is a state of quantum indeterminacy. At the subatomic level, the universe is random, within certain limits. But the range of the randomness is so small that you’re not aware of it on a macro level. It is possible, though, to channel and amplify quantum phenomena, like we do with lasers and superconductors.”
    “ Still not seeing the connection with coin tosses.”
    “ Sorry,” she says, realizing she’s gotten off track. “My point is that it is possible to duplicate quantum indeterminacy – true randomness – on a macro level. Like with Schrödinger’s cat. Some physicists believe there’s no reason you couldn’t actually carry out Schrödinger’s thought experiment and have an actual cat that is both dead and alive. Well, there’s one reason, I suppose.”
    “ The ASPCA?”
    She laughs. “That too. But I was thinking of the fact that the cat would have to be cooled to near absolute zero.”
    “ Ah. That would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”
    She laughs again. “Yeah, the cat would be pretty definitely dead. And unable to inhale poison gas, in any case. What I’m trying to say is that there are ways of making coin tosses truly random. You just have to have a sort of quantum phenomenon amplifier – something that translates a random subatomic action into a physical push at the macro level.”
    “ And you have such an amplifier.”
    She smiles coyly. “Right here,” she says. But she isn’t talking about the amplifier. She’s telling the cab driver that we’ve reached her car. We’re on the street that the BART station is on. My car is in the lot up ahead.
    “ I’ll pay,” I say, before she can get out her wallet. “Please. It’s the least I can do.”
    “ OK,” she says, opening the door. Her car is a blue Lexus with a parking ticket on the windshield.
    “ If this is your idea of explaining everything …” I start.
    “ I know, I know,” she says apologetically. “How about dinner on Wednesday? I’ve got to get home.”
    It ’s hard to overstate how much better this day is going than I had expected. For me, anyway. Not so much those people on the pier.
    “ Sure!” I say, a little too eagerly. Down, boy. “Where at?”
    “ You know Garibaldi’s in Fremont?”
    “ I can find it.”
    “ Six o’clock?”
    “ Works for me.”
    “ See you then, Paul.”
    “ See you.”
    “ Oh, and Paul? I’m