Schrödinger’s cat, bless it’s little white paws, had a pretty tough time of it; what with being locked in an imaginary box, and having to share that space with only a decaying radioactive isotope. At the end of the experiment, when the box is opened and the cat is observed, it’s probability wave collapses into either a live cat or a dead cat. It’s not exactly an easy life (or death).
I was therefore especially pleased today to read of Kirsher’s Hall of Mirrors for cats.
Schrödinger never saw fit to describe the interior decoration of the box, so it struck me that if the box were a hall of mirrors, such as Kirsher’s, then the cat could observe itself; thus collapsing it’s own probability wave and therefore, either
- instaneously ceasing to exist, the moment the isoptope decays, or
- continuing to exist, and spending an hour in a private preening booth (surely this is cat heaven?).
Ok, so there’s unlikely to be a Nobel prize for this one, but if I keep coming up with ideas then the probabilty has to increase, and if I sit in a room full of mirrors whilst I think…
