Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> This was, indeed, the whole point of the Schodinger's cat argument. Is 
>> the cat alive enough to collapse its own waveform?
>>
> 
> Well, that would seem obvious. Its bigger than a single particle, so 
> yes.

Uh, so no. The point was that the result was unobservable from outside the 
box. How does the scientist know whether the waveform was collapsed or not?

> The point of the thought experiment was to describe the apparent 
> weirdness only, not to talk about macro level objects behaving as single 
> particles. ;)

It hasn't anything to do with single particles. The point was that you can 
have an entire collection of particles in superposition. The device 
measuring the radiation goes into superposition. Why doesn't the cat?

(After all, the whole thing behind quantum computing and bose-einstein 
condensates is to get multiple particles in superposition. It's certainly 
*not* limited to a single particle, or there wouldn't be apparent weirdness 
about it brought up by the cat.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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