Flash Forward Gets Schrödinger’s Cat a Little Wrong
Posted by Karl Withakay on October 29, 2009
Tonight’s episode of Flash Forward, “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps” contained a flawed portrayal of the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment (note the 2 separate links) in a conversation where a quantum physicist is trying to pick up a hot woman on a train by telling her he can explain what caused the flash forward. After mentioning that the most basic concept she needed to understand was quantum superpositions, they have some witty flirting and then the conversation proceeds as follows:
Physicist: “Imagine you have a cat, a teeny tiny cat that fits in the palm of your hand. You also have a poisonous sardine. Once we close your palm there are two possible scenarios: either the cat eats the sardine and dies or the cat doesn’t eat the sardine and lives. Quantum physics says until we open your hand to discover the cat’s fate, both eventualities occur at the same time. For us, the cat is both living and deceased.”
Hot Woman “But how can that be?”
Physicist: “That’s the miracle of quantum mechanics. The observer get to decide.”
The problem is that this thought experiment leaves out an important element of the original, a quantum probability. In the original experiment, the cat’s life or death is dependent not on a poisoned sardine, but on the potential decay of a radioactive isotope source. If the source decays and emits a decay particle, a hammer triggered by a Geiger counter breaks a vial of poison, killing the cat; otherwise the cat lives. The key is that the decay or non-decay of the isotope is a quantum probability, whereas the cat eating a poisoned sardine is not.
Schrödinger originated this thought experiment in an attempt to illustrate what he saw as a flaw in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to quantum mechanics, the cat is both alive and dead (because the isotope has both decayed and not decayed) until the observer collapses the quantum wave function by observing the state of the cat (which is dependent on the state of the isotope), even though common sense says the cat was obviously either dead or alive before being observed. The experiment also has nothing to do with the observer “deciding” anything. The act of observation collapses the quantum wave function to one state or the other, but no choice of states is involved or possible.
The Flash Forward thought experiment was an not an example of quantum superposition since no quantum state was involved, and it wasn’t Schrödinger’s/Schroedinger’s Cat.
Ba!nesy said
I’ve just begun to be interested in Schrodinger’s Cat theory, and while I cannot be 100% sure of it’s meaning, i’m going to take a stab at why I believe he told this version.
What was an important part that you left out about ‘Flashforward’s’ version of Schrodinger’s Cat, was that the Physicist asked for the womans hand. The Physical touching of her hand was part of his ‘pickup’ routine (as told by many experts at picking up women aswell as many online ‘pickup’ websites etc.) Although there was no radioactive device, no hammer etc, but surely, the point was mad that there are two posible outcomes, Kitty lives, or Kitty Dies.
As far as the observer gets to decide, well like i said i’m just learning about it, but I realy do believe that the kitty in the hand, touching her hand, was the main reason for not saying “imagine a box, with a cat and a…” where there would be no physical interaction between man and woman.
cordialdeconstruction said
Sure, he was looking for an excuse to hold her hand, but without the quantum state, it’s not Schrödinger’s cat. The Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment was devised to show what Schrödinger saw as a flaw in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics when applied on a macroscopic level, and he devised a way to make a make a macroscopic effect from a quantum state. His point was that the cat isn’t both alive and dead. Since the state on the cat was dependent on the quantum state of the isotope and according to the Copenhagen interpretation the isotope was both decayed and not decayed until the quantum waveform was collapsed by observation, the cat must be both alive and dead until observed, which Schrödinger considered absurd. He considered this to mean that there was a problem with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics since the cat was clearly alive or dead independent of observation.
Without the quantum state, it’s just not a quantum superposition, but only a superposition of non-quantum probabilities, and superposition of non-quantum probabilities is exactly what Schrödinger was pointing out as absurd. With a poisoned sardine, the state of the cat is dependent on a choice by the cat of whether to eat the sardine or not and has nothing to do with quantum mechanics or observation at all.
Amnesia said
Maybe that is why he did not mention that it was Schrödinger’s cat and simply said a cat. But yeah he says “Quantum physics says” that was not very smart, thought neither seemed the girl, so I guess that might have been his reason to not mind being not so very accurate.
I just went back to the episode and he does mention Schrödinger’s cat at first..
Simon: Are you aware of the Double Slit Experiment? ?
Camille: Well, there was that one time in college…
Simon: What about Schrödinger’s cat?
Camille: No, I’m not that kinky.
yeah bad move from the show’s writers..
And the common thing between the 2 experiments is the uncertainty principle, so I’m guessing that is what caused the flash-forwards..
Off to Europe… « Cordial Deconstruction said
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