Comment Re:wouldn't that be... (Score 1) 531
OK, sticking with the cat explanation so that my brain deosn't explode, I'm interested in seeing if my question about the state of the cat can be tied back to the state of the QM particle in question.
QM (from what I can piece together) states that nothing happens until it is observed. The cat is both alive and dead (can it also be said that the cat is neither alive nor dead?) until you open the box. As time goes on the probability of the "dead" observation of the cat increases, but it has both states until the box is opened. I am also assuming that with QM, it is impossible to *know* what state the cat was in an hour ago (even after the box was opened), let alone what state it is in now while the box is closed.
Now what happens if the experiment runs for a long time and you open the box and the cat is dead, and based on other observable factors (in this case, decomposition), has been in this state for some time. Using other scientific methods (in this case, an autopsy), you can determine when the cat died and determine that during a specific time frame in the past the cat had one state (alive) before switching to the other. This would then show that the cat never really existed in both states, even
Using this analogy, is there no scientific means to determine the past history, even if it wasn't being observed during that whole time. Or does the (supposedly random) outcome of observing the state now change how we observe history as well?
Hopefully someone gets my drift and can explain this to me in a semi-simplistic manner.
QM (from what I can piece together) states that nothing happens until it is observed. The cat is both alive and dead (can it also be said that the cat is neither alive nor dead?) until you open the box. As time goes on the probability of the "dead" observation of the cat increases, but it has both states until the box is opened. I am also assuming that with QM, it is impossible to *know* what state the cat was in an hour ago (even after the box was opened), let alone what state it is in now while the box is closed.
Now what happens if the experiment runs for a long time and you open the box and the cat is dead, and based on other observable factors (in this case, decomposition), has been in this state for some time. Using other scientific methods (in this case, an autopsy), you can determine when the cat died and determine that during a specific time frame in the past the cat had one state (alive) before switching to the other. This would then show that the cat never really existed in both states, even
Using this analogy, is there no scientific means to determine the past history, even if it wasn't being observed during that whole time. Or does the (supposedly random) outcome of observing the state now change how we observe history as well?
Hopefully someone gets my drift and can explain this to me in a semi-simplistic manner.
