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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