[1724] in Humor
HUMOR: Schrodinger's Catbox
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Bennett)
Mon Nov 25 16:08:35 1996
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 15:57:16 -0500
To: humor@MIT.EDU
From: abennett@MIT.EDU (Andrew Bennett)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 13:05:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>
Forwarded-by: "Marc de Groot" <marc@immersive.com>
From: alpham@icanect.net
A fun project is the Schrodinger's Cat Box. You need a mild source of
radioactivity (I use scrapings from old "luminous" watches I get at flea
markets). I make a box out of plywood except that two sides are small
celled Nomex honeycomb (<.125") cut to three inch thickness. One
honeycomb side is covered with onion skin paper and the other is left
open. A strong light is positioned outside the open celled honeycomb wall
and is directed into the box. The radioactive scrapings are smeared across
the light lens with a bit of glue. Inside the box I put the sensor to
a Geiger counter (borrow one from your local high school). The counter is
connected to a fast relay which, when closed by an alpha particle from
the scrapings, lights the light. Now, a small, live animal (cat ) is
placed into the box. One stands behind the onion skin paper side of the
box and plugs in the Geiger Counter. With no light the alpha particles
are few and are not sufficient to turn on the light. The light is
switched the first time with a switch which is in parallel with the relay.
Instantly you can see the shadow of the animal on the onion skin paper.
Then, as the cat moves, the light and rush of alpha particles turn the
light on and off, strobe like, and you can see that sometimes the animal
is not there, or some part of him is gone! It's quantum uncertainty can
be measured. It proves that there are two states for the animal (and
everything else) --existence and non-existence. No harm comes to the
animal, by the way.
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Andrew Bennett MIT Department Ocean Engineering
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