A Schrodinger's Cat Story

[RAGORDON2010]

Some year’s back, I had occasion to be hospitalized for 10 weeks or so while a bunch of doctors tried to figure out what ailed me.  Finally, I was admitted to the Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.

The morning after my admission, a group of medical students on their rounds stopped by my room.  Having been trained as a physicist and having not much else to say as they stared at me, I asked them if they had heard about Schrodinger’s cat.  The reaction was “What?”.

So I began to tell them about the cat, the box, the acid bath, the cyanide pill, and whether the cat was alive or dead while the box remained closed.  I then explained that the probabilities that the cat was alive or dead were given by a mathematical construct know as a “wave function”, and until the box was opened, the state of the cat remained uncertain.  Finally, the box is opened, the state of the cat is determined, and the wave function collapses.

Needless to say, my story seemed to make little impression on the medical students.

I then proceeded to explain that I was Schrodinger’s cat.  I was suffering from some unknown ailment which could easily be confused with any number of ailments exhibiting similar symptoms.  So, while the hospital staff considers these possible diagnoses, internally my body was moving from one disease state to the next, with relative durations set by the probabilities contained in my wave function.  And then I looked directly at the medical students and told them that this state of affairs will continue until, at last, they opened me up (figuratively speaking I hoped) and arrived at a definite and correct diagnosis.  At which point, my wave function will collapse, and my body will possess that and only that disease condition.

Well, by and large, the students rolled their eyes, shook their heads and started for the door.  As I called after them that they should read more physics, one young man stopped in the doorway and thanked me for my tale.

Two days later, after the hospital staff had indeed arrived at a definite and correct diagnosis and set me up on a regimen that would keep me alive for the foreseeable future, I came across this same young student on my way out.  Again he thanked me for the story and told me how much he appreciated the fact that I had brought Schrodinger’s cat to Yale-New Haven Hospital.

 

 

  

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Moved to the lounge, as there is no physics discussion being offered.

 

[MigL]

That darn cat's wavefunction sure does get around, considering the cat is half dead...

Edited January 23, 2020 by MigL