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Critics to Shrodinger´cat


Critics to Shrödinger´ Cat Before proceeding with the disclosures of controversial ideas of physics, let us recall one of the major mysteries of quantum mechanics, which deals with the paradox of the cat. This thought experiment was proposed by the great physicist Erwin Shrödinger that was one of the architects of revolutionary theory which along with the Theory of Relativity of Albert Einstein, led to a philosophical revolution in scientific thinking this century. The reader may have become estranged physicists dealing with a subject that seems like a joke. Trap a cat in a box in which has a radioactive source, a radiation detector and a poisonous gas that is released when a particle is detected, killing the cat, is not only a joke, is the height of wickedness. But it's just a thought experiment, and  say the biographers, Shrödinger was a beautiful soul. Another version is due to David Bohm that consist in a light source, a half-silvered mirror and a light detector (a photocell, for example) that is coupled to a weapon that kills the cat when a photon is detected. In this version the half-silvered mirror splits the quantum state of the incident photon in a superposition of two different states, one reflected and one that is transmitted by the mirror. The fact is that in both cases, the cat lives in a superposition of life and death. Let us now address the original version. In the case of the cat trapped in the box, the particle detector is only triggered once per minute. Suppose the probability of emission of a particle by the radiation source is 0.5 during that time. Quantum theory does not predict the detection of radioactive event. Just says that the probability of that happening is 50%. If the particle is detected, the poisonous gas is released and the cat dies. We put the cat in an artificial satellite so that no one knows if the cat is alive or dead. As interpreted by the Copenhagen School (this school was led by Niels Bohr), even after spending a minute, we who are here on Earth, we can not say if the cat is in a definite state of life or death, simply because really we do not  observe itself. As seen in these articles, quantum mechanics describes this by assigning a wave function (a probability wave) to the physical condition of the live cat and another physical state of the dead cat. The cat box is then correctly described as a state of superposition wave consisting of an equal measure of the wave to a live cat and the cat died. This state of superposition for the cat box is characterized by probability. It makes no sense to say whether the cat is alive or dead. Suppose now that a team of scientists go into space in a spacecraft, for example, a space shuttle, to check the status of the cat. Upon opening the box, they see that the cat is alive. The interpretation of the Copenhagen school for this event is that scientists in opening the box, make a note, putting the cat in a quantum state defined, which is the cat alive. But for some reason the communication system of the spacecraft with the Earth fault and scientists there are prevented from communicating with here. For Earth scientists, the cat box and scientists of the nave are a state of wave superposition of live cat and dead cat. You see now that the state of superposition becomes larger. Finally scientists are able to get a link with a land computer and transmit the information that the cat is alive, getting this information in computer memory without anyone read what is in memory. Now is the computer and the scientists who remained in the land constituting a state of overlapping waves. When that information is read Earth scientists reduce the superposition state to a state well defined. They tell the news to colleagues who are in other rooms and so on. According to this interpretation, the reality only jumps to the actual view when we observe it. Otherwise it only exists in a state of superposition. Even the reality of the macroscopic world is not objectively until we observe. The analysis of the experience of the cat suggests that an observation requires a conscience. Objects such as chairs, tables and animals such as cats not have defined  existence unless they are observed by a consciousness. It turns up that the point of view of the Copenhagen School is only required for the microscopic world and should not be applied to objects of ordinary life. According to the physicist Heinz Pagels (1939-1988, was executive director of the New York Academy of Science and wrote the book The Cosmic Code) see what really happens when you make an observation. When observing an object, the first impression we have of this is through the light energy that reaches our eyes. But the most important observation is information. It is known that the study of statistical mechanics that is not possible to obtain information without increasing the entropy (entropy is a measure of the disorganization of a system), which is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This increase of entropy implies that the time has an arrow - there are temporal irreversibility and  exist physical processes that store information; then the memory is possible. We conclude that the irreversibility of time is the main aspect of observation, not the consciousness of observation, although this, of course, print irreversible because it involves memory. The observations can be performed by computers because they have a magnetic memory. The main point of this analysis of the observation is that being the  information of quantum world irreversible in the macroscopic world, surely we can give an objective meaning to it - you can not slip back to the wasteland of the quantum world. Thus it appears that collapses the Copenhagen interpretation, which is embodied in extreme view of reality. But if we stay at the quantum level, a measure can generate indeterminacies. How the quantum indeterminacy may affect our lives in this macroscopic world? Let's see. The past computers had an architecture formed by  electronics components that could highlight a quick inspection of its interior. Transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors and even vacuum tubes made up the main computer parts. Miniaturization of the components was relatively fast, due to sophisticated printing techniques of circuits, and currently those components are already coming to the scale of molecular dimensions and the tendency is to reach the atomic scale and perhaps even the subatomic. There is no longer time, the computers 286 were considered very advanced technology and now are in the museum. Well, when there was a problem with any of those components, for example, the burning of a circuit or broken wire, its replacement by a technician was possible. Now with the new computers that is not possible due to microscopic size of those components which no longer sees the naked eye. However, we now have a new type of malfunction of these computers and which is called ´software errors´. This occurs when a micro-switch failure during an operation and then immediately goes to work normally. Engineers can not do this kind of repairing because no physical component was damaged. What causes these errors in software? Quantum particles are high energy that can fly through the micro-electronic switches, causing those of our known bugs, but rather do nothing more with the electronics. These particles can simply be cosmic rays or particles emitted by natural radioactivity exists in materials that make up the micro - chip. Thus the software errors are part of the undetermined universe of quantum mechanics. Its location and effects are totally random. Someone has speculated that it would be possible to trigger a nuclear holocaust produced by these random particles, ie by a random error. So the military computers of the great powers are shielded and have low natural radioactivity in order that the probability of such an occurrence is minimal. Another example is what happens at conception of a child: a random combination of DNA molecules of the child's parents. At that moment does the quantum aspect of chemical bond between the DNA molecules. Therefore, the quantum indeterminacy may indeed affect our lives. Now those who carries this indeterminacy to macroscopic objects like cats and objects, do, according to Pagels, free. The seriousness of the problem of  Shrödinger´s cat can be assessed on the extent of this problem for the origin of the Universe. According to Roger Penrose (1931 -), Oxford University, after the moment of the Big Bang and the duration of the Planck time (10-43 s) the corresponding  space interval is the Planck length (10-33 cm), numbers these 'ridiculous', the space-time attempts to fork. There is a situation that leads to a superposition of two space - time, one of which represents the live cat and other the  died cat. It is in this interval of space that Nature should choose one or the other space-time according to a rule that is still unknown. Those 'ridiculous numbers' which Penrose refers are several orders of magnitude smaller than those that characterize the state of elementary particles. When the Universe was 'only' 10-33 s of age, there was a sudden exponential expansion given by a factor of 1060, which begins a new era, outlined by Alan Guth (1947 -), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT ), the Inflationary Universe. This theory is rejected by Penrose and, among others, the director of the British magazine Nature, which opposes serious restrictions on that model  and the Big Bang itself. I believe it is only a model or a theory concocted to agree with the observations made by current ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope, mainly on the cosmic microwave background radiation observed by Arno Panzias (1933 -) and Robert Wilson (1936 - ), which confirmed the theory of inflationary Universe, so they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Well, you might say that all this is crazy, but that is how science advances and lets you now, perhaps, answer the call from your cell phone... leopoldferreira@gmail.com [1]     Physicist and writer. Five published books. Msc.  in science by COPPE-UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro). Phd in Physics by UFPA(Belém do Pará). Take training at Kernforschunganlage Jülich Gmbh-Germany. Professor and guide of two thesis in post-graduation. Flght-Controller. Articles published at journals. See more at Google search: "leopoldino dos santos Ferreira".   [1] http://topcatproductreviews.commailto:leopoldferreira@gmail.com
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Date Added: 01/05/2011
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