The mental exercise referred to as "Schrodinger's Cat" has become a part of our everyday conversations thanks to its appearance in The Big Bang Theory TV show. The thought experiment was designed to help understanding of how quantum physics interacts with our more observable Newtonian physics based reality. In the experiment a cat is placed in a box (I'm guessing a solid, soundproof box) with a radioactive isotope detector that is connected to a device that can smash a vial of poison. The moment the detector senses an isotope (a random occurrence that may never happen), it signals the device to break the vial, which releases the poison and kills the cat. Without observation, after a period of time it becomes impossible to know if the cat is alive or dead, and can thus be thought of as existing as both alive AND dead until someone opens the box and observes the cat's current state. Quantum particles work the same way, existing in multiple states until forced to come into contact with our Newtonian universe.
Leave it to a male scientist to come up with such a grim experiment when the same point could have been easily made with a common, life-affirming event: pregnancy. From the moment a woman discovers that she is pregnant, her child exists in multiple states: male or female, looking more like the mother or the father, healthy or not, etc. Until the child is directly observed (through ultrasound, other sorts of testing, or birth), that child exists in all states at once. While people might make guesses about the outcome, only the direct observation brings the child's state into certainty.
Women have known this long before Schrodinger patted himself on the back for his disturbing scenario. This is why the birth of a child, beyond its physical and hormonal issues, can bring such trauma to a woman despite it being a happy event. For the mother, the birth of the child reveals that child's ultimate form, but also puts to "death" the other possibilities that the child could have been (not to mention ending the mother's intimate and continual contact with the child). Even an ultrasound determining a baby's gender can give both joy and sadness; while the parents might rejoice in knowing they are going to have a beautiful baby boy, that knowledge also "kills" the gorgeous baby girl who might have been.
While I connected these ideas, I can't take full credit for them. It was the second book in the Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber, by Diana Gabaldon that took me down this line of thought. As much as some of the scenes in her books disturb me (I almost didn't make it through the first book), I have found a number of gems that have made me examine my world in different ways, which is exactly what good literature should do.
As for Schrodinger, perhaps he should have consulted with a mother before making people think about zombie cats.
Leave it to a male scientist to come up with such a grim experiment when the same point could have been easily made with a common, life-affirming event: pregnancy. From the moment a woman discovers that she is pregnant, her child exists in multiple states: male or female, looking more like the mother or the father, healthy or not, etc. Until the child is directly observed (through ultrasound, other sorts of testing, or birth), that child exists in all states at once. While people might make guesses about the outcome, only the direct observation brings the child's state into certainty.
Women have known this long before Schrodinger patted himself on the back for his disturbing scenario. This is why the birth of a child, beyond its physical and hormonal issues, can bring such trauma to a woman despite it being a happy event. For the mother, the birth of the child reveals that child's ultimate form, but also puts to "death" the other possibilities that the child could have been (not to mention ending the mother's intimate and continual contact with the child). Even an ultrasound determining a baby's gender can give both joy and sadness; while the parents might rejoice in knowing they are going to have a beautiful baby boy, that knowledge also "kills" the gorgeous baby girl who might have been.
While I connected these ideas, I can't take full credit for them. It was the second book in the Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber, by Diana Gabaldon that took me down this line of thought. As much as some of the scenes in her books disturb me (I almost didn't make it through the first book), I have found a number of gems that have made me examine my world in different ways, which is exactly what good literature should do.
As for Schrodinger, perhaps he should have consulted with a mother before making people think about zombie cats.
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