SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT - VERY WEIRD

Jack's band is called Schrödinger's Cats. I'd like to tell you why.

It relates, as many of you will realise, to a scientific conundrum commonly called Schrödinger's Cat or The Schrödinger's Cat paradox. It's one of the weirdest things to think about in the whole of physics and philosophy. Hardly anyone really understands it - I certainly don't! - and scientists argue about what it means.

It's called a "thought experiment" because it can't physically be proved. (Luckily for the cat.)

Here's the wikipedia entry.

And here is a nice clear video featuring a scientist with mad hair.

But I prefer this one, because you get to click a button and see whether the cat lives or dies - very like tossing a coin at the end of Wasted.


Confused? You're not alone! You are supposed to be confused. The scientist Niels Bohr said, "If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them." And also, "If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet."

(If you are stumbling on this for the first time, I blogged about quantum mechanics / physics here, and do read the comments, too, because they're very helpful.) 

Schrödinger wasn't saying that we have to believe that a cat can be dead and alive at the same time. He was saying that our current understanding of quantum physics suggests that the cat is dead and alive, which doesn't make sense, and either that therefore we haven't yet explained it properly, or that quantum science doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the universe. (Which we know is true - but we want to know what rules it follows.)

But the reason that Jack in Wasted is so interested in Schrödinger's Cat is that it's all about tiny (really tiny, invisible and impossible to observe even with a huge microscope) particles that change just by being observed**. And the idea that nothing is true until it's true. This is my explanation of Schrodinger's Cat - bearing in mind that I'm not a scientist but a philosopher by nature and training. "Everything is possible until it isn't." So, his idea is that if our lives seem ruled by chance (even though they're not - it just seems that way because we can't see or control the causes) then we can CHANGE what happens to us just by thinking about, or watching, or talking about what might happen.

For example, leaving the house five minutes earlier might make a big difference to your life - you might meet someone, or have an accident, or AVOID an accident. (I'm going to talk a lot more about that in later posts and ask you for your stories on May 4th.) Because we can't predict these things we don't bother to think about them - so, we don't think, "Hmmm, if I leave the house five minutes later, this will make a difference." We just leave the house without thinking. But Jack thinks that if we take control of small actions, we will affect our luck. We still won't control luck but we will affect it and feel in control.

**(Though, according to one of the helpful commenters on my recent blog post in the link above, the idea of observation here is not just the act of someone looking, but the measuring, which involves a physical act likely to change the particle. However, this is still why Jack is fascinated and why he calls his band Schrödinger's Cats.))

When I was at university, I studied philosophy, and specifically metaphysics, the discussion of how the world works beyond physics. We talked about truth, reality, knowledge, relativity, and a whole load more. Some of the things you have to puzzle over can drive you nuts! A philosopher can claim to prove that the table in front of you isn't real, which is very disconcerting if you want to put your mug of tea on it. So, you have to live your life as a normal person, and reserve the philosophy for fun. I think it's the same with quantum physics - we have to live our lives ignoring it, and just puzzle about it for fun.

Unless your job is to be a quantum physicist... In which case, I am happy for you to be dead and alive and work out for yourself just how that feels.

I'd love to know if any of you have any thoughts about Schrödinger's Cat, or if you can help me explain it better. But those of you who are serious scientists need to be careful - the rest of us are simple beings and are probably confused enough already...

THE WASTED BLOG TOUR - WHERE AM I TODAY? I am delighted to be over at Mary Hoffman's blog. Mary, aka the Book Maven, is a hugely successful and well-known author for young people and she's been kind enough to support me in lots of ways. Over there I'm talking about how writers prey on make use of the fact that readers can be made to suspend their disbelief; how even rational, sciencey people can, when engrossed in a story by a skilled story-teller, believe what we want them to believe. The reason I was thinking about that when I blogged for Mary is that last night, April 30th, was Walpurgis Night and I was doing an after-dinner speech at the Scottish Arts Club. Head over to Mary's to see what on earth that's got to do with anything!

PS - the speech went really well, though this was definitely the oldest audience I've ever spoken to and, although they were charming and laughed in all the right places, I don't think most of them had a clue what teenage fiction was about or why anyone would bother to write it! Maybe they should read this fabulous piece by one of my blog readers, womagwriter.