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[malimbar04]

Stumbled upon this today, and I figured you guys would love it.

The question: can you create the double slit-experiment with a cat cannon?
The answer: Of course, if you do it right.

http://www.askamathematician.com/?p=4510

[Zaerosz]

what the hell is this madness.

[Sowelu]

Man, I wish I had a cat cannon and sufficiently many cats.

I wouldn't use them for science though.  Pranks maybe.

[optimumtact]

what the hell is this madness.

Madness......?

[Zaerosz]

what the hell is this madness.

Madness......?

Oh no.

No no no no NO. YOU DO NOT USE THIS MEME IN MY PRESENCE.

AAAAAAAAGH

* Zaerosz has gone berserk!

[Ochita]

what the hell is this madness.

Madness......?

This is a confusing idea, please explain it to me. Is what he is trying to say.

[Zrk2]

I read about this experiment in a Michael Crichton (I think that's how it's spelled) novel, Timeline.

[Itnetlolor]

Set them thermonuclear, and you have yourself one hell of a firework for the 4th of July.

[lordcooper]

Urists cat:  If you drown a cat, then put it in a box, is it truly dead or alive?

[ein]

I'm going to have to challenge that.
Schrödinger's Cat is about observation, not philosophy.
If you toss a cat in the water and it is rushed downstream before you see it drown, it is both dead and alive.
A dead cat can't become half not dead because you put it in a box.

[lordcooper]

I'm going to have to challenge that.
Schrödinger's Cat is about observation, not philosophy.
If you toss a cat in the water and it is rushed downstream before you see it drown, it is both dead and alive.
A dead cat can't become half not dead because you put it in a box.

You, sir, are no dwarf.

[lemon10]

what the hell is this madness.

Madness......?

THIS. IS. SPARTA. (I wasn't planning on doing it, but Zaerosz's reaction made me do it).

[RedKing]

I'm going to have to challenge that.
Schrödinger's Cat is about observation, not philosophy.
If you toss a cat in the water and it is rushed downstream before you see it drown, it is both dead and alive.
A dead cat can't become half not dead because you put it in a box.

Not entirely accurate. Schrodinger intended the cat thought experiment to argue on a philosophical level that observation cannot create causality. Some of Heisenberg's work had begun to create a school of thought that the universe was not truly actualized until observed, and that it was the act of observation that "fixes" the universe from potentiality into existence. Which was all too mystical and New Age-y for Schrodinger, so he pointed out the logical absurdity of this by conceiving of a situation in which the cat would be "potentially" both alive and dead, and pointing out that opening the box and observing the animal does not cause its death or lack thereof.

[Virex]

There's one thing I always wondered about with Schrödingers cat. The problem is that any observation should break a quantum state (or else two consecutive observers could experience two different realities). But then, a cat that has just been put in a box is rather observant, so it should break the quantum state by itself...

[Heron TSG]

It can observe, yes, but I believe the outside observer is the point of the experience. You could just s easily ask if a gray rock stayed grey or turned bright magenta when you didn't look.