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Thread: Schrödinger's Cat

  1. #1

    Default Schrödinger's Cat

    The Cat


    THE NON-ESSENTIAL CAT


    The famous thought experiment, Schrödinger's cat, famously challenges the idea that observing something changes it - i.e the photo-electric effect, wave-particle duality in light, 'tree falls in wood no-one hears it'. I'll let wikipedia explain the experiment:

    A cat, along with a flask containing a poison and a radioactive source, is placed in a sealed box. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat.

    Doesn't have to be a cat, could be a city, an elephant, a rather fine vanity production quarto. Could be you or me, could be the tree that falls in the forest.

    In all of these cases - until the box is opened, we do not know if the cat is dead. So therefore, if the box remains closed, the cat remains alive in potentia, but also potentially dead.

    This, we are told by people with lots of letters after their names, is a paradox which says an awful lot about quantum mechanics and laughably its practical application, like it surpasses the photo-electric effect and so on.

    Schrödinger, we are told, was making a pretty snazzy point about all this.

    From someone who has adopted his name, I can tell you this is a load of cobblers. What our friend Schrödinger, erstwhile Austrian national hero, was telling us, is that most things don't matter. And that quantum mechanics is bull anyway, as Einstein tells us, we are rooted in reality


    Quote Originally Posted by A. Einstein
    You are the only contemporary physicist, besides Laue, who sees that one cannot get around the assumption of reality, if only one is honest. Most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality—reality as something independent of what is experimentally established. Their interpretation is, however, refuted most elegantly by your system of radioactive atom + amplifier + charge of gunpowder + cat in a box, in which the psi-function of the system contains both the cat alive and blown to bits. Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation.
    The cat is independent of the act of observation- but is well documented that people behave differently when they are knowingly observed, just as the behaviour of light in a double-slit experiment changes from wave to particle behaviour.

    In my stories, the people do not, generally, know that they are being observed, but it is interesting to wonder how they would behave if they knew they were being written and read about. How would you change your life?

    What I do aim to do, is maintain the assumption of reality. Every word is real.


    The AARs

    From eldest to youngest:

    After Manzikert - February 2008 - my reason for joining the forum. Similarities with my current work but from a younger self, quite different but recommended higher than anything else. Prosaic.

    Tales of a Genoese Merchant Land - March 2008 - all of us were young once. Lost in a tragic fire on my hard drive.

    One Man's Tale - May 2008 - actually quite good before it got bad, the story of a young Yorkshire farmboy who ends up being a soldier. Decent.

    What it is to be a King - July 2008 - yes, I was prolific. No, they weren't very good. Back in Epirus here, with another character AAR, a short read but decent enough in its way

    After Manzikert - Rome - October 2009 like Schwarzenegger, I will be back. A watered down version of the original After Manzikert

    Men were Strong - March 2010 - a Hungarian AAR which lasts about 300 words. Worthy of TOTW if my title picture ever comes up.

    Restoring Rome - March 2012 - an ongoing series of vignettes describing 12th century Byzantine Empire. One for fans of intrigue and politics, updating daily. Daily I tell you! - Restored as of February 2013...


    Other Stuff To blow my own golden trumpet, I helped set up these very AAR Forums. Before it was mish-mash, a mosh-mush and a general flappoot. With the aid of Gaius Baltar and PowerWizard- and of course the voters, we created this new forum to keep all AARs together in a tighter community. I hope you are all grateful (I kid, everything that happens is thanks to our vibrant and wonderful community) look here for PowerWizard's blog on the origins of the forum:

    THE HISTORY OF MAARC

    Also, entered TOTW a few times, winning once and currently at a tie-breaker for another, here are literally all of my entries. (Except the one on tie-break, would be unsporting to publicise it)

    WINNER TotW 133
    Howling mournfully, Wolf felt a chill sweat trickle down his brow, surely looking like a sickly milk in the unearthly glow of the moon. It haunted him, glimmering so unnaturally. All of his muscles contracted and he screwed up his face in excruciation as, helpless, he sent another howl into the night.

    Miles away from the nearest soul, but only a few hundred yards from the nearest of the rest of the army, Wolf felt his throat contract and his heavy legs groan under his weight as he shuffled in a brief zephyr that whispered cruelly of the oncoming winter. Scuttling on the ground beneath him was a spider, casually, he moved a paw and crushed it into the ground, grinding the luckless arachnid into oblivion.

    Again, he glanced at the moon and could not help but let his mouth do its awful thing, his limbs thrust unnaturally back as he felt the queer contortion that had become so familiar. It was full and round and it hovered like a balloon. It always seemed to Wolf as if the moon was on the verge of falling and crushing him. Crushing the world. Crushing everything. Hatred gripped him as he howled again.

    Behind him he heard more howling from deep within the woods. He did not like others howling any more than his own, solitary, howling. The pain and the dislike mingled with the scent of cold steel and sweat in the arm, the taint of smoke and spilled blood and desolate widows.

    In front of him, a man of metal lumbered out and hauled down the front of his lower garments. Wolf let loose his most primal growl of all. The moon taunted him and made his head throb evilly. The stench of steel was so strong. The bloodlust in him was everything.


    WINNER TOTW 132
    The Merry Men of the Forest

    The damsel damselled distressedly, being suitably upset at the distressing turn of events. She had been frolicking through the forest to see her grandmother this morning and now she was tied to a tree, damselling. Never before had she damselled, but she was damn well going to damsel now she had the opportunity.

    Especially with the drunken men cavorting in the clearing in front of her. Smiler had a scar which cut grotesquely across his chin. Lugless had none of his own but wore a necklace of three dangling down to his bared hairy chest. Nightmare wore a hood, his only feature the stench of cider emanating from the hole which was his breathing opening. They had lit a fire and were dancing in its flickering light, hallooing and screaming a rough song popular at the time.

    “Oh! The sand, the sand, the sand, sand, sand
    There are camels, camels, camels, camels
    In the sand, sand, sand, sand
    Oh! The land, the land, the land, land, land
    Is full of camels, camels, camels
    Like an ‘orse with an ‘ump, ‘ump, ‘ump.
    And a very hairy rump, rump, rump”

    It seemed to the damselling, who was damselling very well despite the gag over her little mouth, that they had captured her for a stupid game for which the only purpose was to annoy her. Intermittently they would come up to her for the ‘rump, rump, rump’ lines, but they did not touch her. Although they had not been so gentlemanly when they had caught her, bound her and forced her into a large haversack with a knife at her throat.

    “Like an ‘orse with an ‘ump, ‘ump, ‘ump”

    Then it happened. Smiler spilt his drink on Lugless, who turned to blame Nightmare as his beloved ear collection soaked in rancid alcohol. Nightmare drew his knife on Lugless, who with a howl like a rusty trumpet went to lay him out with a vicious right hook. Lugless dodged it clumsily with drunken speed, stumbling into Smiler. Smiler grinned a terrible grin and shoved Lugless to the ground, tripping him, and turned on Nightmare, drawing his own knife. The two circled for a bit, until the larger Smiler stumbling on a fallen branch, the other end of which Nightmare had been stood on. As the branch tumbled, both men fell and stuck their knives into one another’s guts.

    It took the men who were too merry a little under a day to die, and the damsel in distress a further three until the delirium carried her to the Styx, rescuing her from the dying illusion she was a sausage.


    TOTW 9
    ONLY FOR THEIR GOD

    The hard, cruel sun of the Palestine beat mercilessly down on the backs of the knights, enrobed in thick fur and swathed in the dead-weight of armour, they boiled gently alive like a French chef's lobster in the wait for a Saracen on the horizon. Each was enclosed in an own captule of pontification, wrapped in the thoughts of the loved ones they had left behind, whom they may never set eyes on again. All were in this for God, be it by pretence or true faith. Catholic Europe had sent forth the men of the land in a vain hope to 'rescue' the land they believe Holy from those they term barbaric and infidels, the worshippers of Islam. These men had come forth at the words of men such as Fulk of Charters, of the great speakers and preachers of their lands. And they were from many lands, the many states and warring kingdoms of feudal Europe. Bavarians, Bohemians and Burgundians side by side. English and French united under one banner. Aragonese, Castillians, Basques and Leones, together for their faith. Milanese and Genoese shoulder to shoulder, under the benevolent protection of their Lord.


    They hated each other by principle, these peoples, from birth they were espoused their racial enmities, which smouldered deep in the mind of each one even as they waited motionless, sweating in the wait for battle and perhaps death. Thousand of enemies, united, by the power of God, only for their God.


    TOTW 131
    The Outpost

    “Rum pah! Tah! Rum tah pah dah rum! Tah hah rum pah dah!”

    With the gusto of a rock orchestra, Silvio the priest headbanged as his ass rode up to the sandstone gates.

    “Bah bah dahdah bah! Da dah bah! Ta rummm tiddle tay toohay!”

    The white rheums covered his once incisive eyes as they rolled with madness, his once strong hands shook with incontrollable joie de vivre as he barely managed to keep his fingers over the leather harness.

    “Rahh rah rah rah rah rahh rahhhh!”

    Clenching his wonky gravestone teeth, the skeletal ass bent his ears back in an attempt to block out the din, however futile he knew it to be after forever carrying Silvio. Only the strongest love of the water and purpled carrots the old freak had a knack for finding and carrying kept the priest on his hairy back.

    “Bah dah tah bum bah! Bum bah bawn nah! Bom! Bah di dah!”

    Crackling like an aged gramophone, the old priest swayed and shook his head round and round: it worried the ass that his charge would fall. If Silvio hurt himself there would be no more water and no more carrots for some time, unless this city of sand held any promise for an ass down on his luck.

    “Tah chi chi cha cha hah! Bawwww! bawwww! Broooo-oooohhh-oooooooohhh-oooohhh!”

    Patience tested to the full, the ass bucked a bit and did his best to hiss.

    “Cat-hah-hee-dee-dah!”

    Imperturbable in his tunelessness, the ass was sure Silvio would rouse some response from this bastion in the middle of the desert for the wandering prophet and the mind-crippled Man of God. After the last three hundred miles across ‘The Holy Land’ the ass had got some interesting ideas about Christianity he could not wait to share.

    “Mwaaawww! Mwaaawww! Mah! Dah! Dah dee dee dah!”

    Braying at the top of his voice, the ass was horrified to hear that his throat was cracked and he sounded nearly as demonic as Silvio himself. Surely no-one would think them anything else than desert spirits, a horrific mirage brought on by too much harsh desert wine and not enough…

    “Fan-tat-raaaaa! Fa raaaa! Lotot! Whum! Whum! Whumchuck!”

    This time, a man in a white cloak did come out of a gate. He had a companion with a crossbow. The ass heard words of coherence he had not for too long before.

    “Kill the madman but save his ass.”

    Whum. Chuck. Dee dee dah.


    Also some clutter, which can be found here, all WIP and ready for criticism

    THE BOX, a poem

    Thick old box holds thick old things
    Tick tock, thick old box, over and
    Over again. The sun shines on
    My thick old box as wood sings
    Old age's song.

    Dust motes dance their time away
    In sunbeams, which do not care
    or notice. They glitter until
    Evening's breath takes day and
    Deadens air.

    Spent they lie huddled away
    Crowding, crowning my box
    they sleep. The night breathes slow and
    Thinks of nothing. For words lay
    Under lock

    Slowly I forgot my words
    And my thoughts and my old box
    I did not notice dancing
    Dust motes in twirling herds
    Locks stole me.


    SPIDERS, a song

    (Not sure about chords. Maybe alternate G5 and A5 at end of lines, G5 and C5 after each '...alone' and from 'on my chest' penultimate verse alternate C5 and A5.)

    Spider got eight legs
    I only got one
    Spider got no home
    I got none
    Flies on his web

    When I'm alone

    Hey spider
    Hey spider...
    Wonder how spider is
    Sitting on his web
    On his telephone
    To his spider friends

    And I'm alone

    Got no telephone
    Oh Spider
    Hey Spider...
    Now there's eight spiders
    Spider called his friends

    Now I'm alone

    It's getting darker now
    There's twenty spiders now
    Still I'm alone

    Hey spiders
    Hey spiders...
    They're coming closer now
    While I'm alone
    Spiders got eight legs
    I only got one

    Spiders on my legs
    Crawling all around
    Hey spiders
    Hey spiders
    Tickling on my knee

    Crawling on my chest
    Flies on my belly now
    Spiders in my mouth
    So I'm not alone

    Thanks spiders
    Thanks Spider
    Hey spiders...

    and a poem



    The Bird
    the bird, whose days are spent squatting for heat
    By the air vents, which billow warming air,
    Ruffling his feathers and warming his feet,
    Watching men walk in wind which batters their hair,
    Earning crust at a belching dragon's lair,
    The bird squats and wonders why they choose battle,
    To live at the whim of men who don't care;
    To live life and be treated as cattle;
    When he was warm and heard fresh grain's rattle.
    Also wrote for the Eagle Standard for a few months, but can't find what I actually did because I'm no longer Content Staff so blocked from seeing my own posts. Will be spring/summer 2008 editions though.



    Having mostly done that as an exercise in seeing what the I've ever done, it's more extensive than good, but glad to see TWC has always provided a good C & C base. Go you guys! Woo!

    Also, I hope the cat has made you think about whether you exist or not independently of everything else. After all, if there was nothing to be relative to, how would you define yourself?
    Last edited by Schrödinger; March 01, 2013 at 02:34 PM.
    ~

    RESTORING ROME - CHAPTER II: TRAGEDY OF THE KOMNENOI
    bitte sehr
    SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT - A VERY SPECIAL FELINE


  2. #2
    Shankbot de Bodemloze's Avatar From the Writers Study!
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    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Brilliant! I loved the bit about 'The Cat'

    I just read 'Men were Strong' short but sweet I'm looking forward to getting stuck into 'After Manzikert' (the first one) It'll be interesting to see the similarities and differences between the it and your current one (after all they're both about The Byzantine Empire ) Although I wont post on it, I know how much 'necro-posting' is frowned upon :

    And about the AAR forums... 'Life's too short to be humble'

    EDIT: I can't see it in your signature by the way, it kind of shows the first half of the text, but not all of it - just to let you know

    EDIT: I can see it now
    Last edited by Shankbot de Bodemloze; April 13, 2012 at 05:31 PM.
    THE WRITERS' STUDY | THE TRIBUNAL | THE CURIA | GUIDE FOR NEW MEMBERS



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  3. #3

    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Cheers Shanks, Men Were Strong would have been good, as would One Man's Tale or even After Manzikert...

    And thanks for the heads up on the sig situation
    ~

    RESTORING ROME - CHAPTER II: TRAGEDY OF THE KOMNENOI
    bitte sehr
    SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT - A VERY SPECIAL FELINE


  4. #4
    Legio's Avatar EMPRESS OF ALL THINGS
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    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    I remember seeing you around, Tweety. We have a mutual acquaintance in molls. I enjoyed the What it is to be a King AAR while it was running.

  5. #5
    Shankbot de Bodemloze's Avatar From the Writers Study!
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    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Quote Originally Posted by Schrödinger View Post
    Cheers Shanks, Men Were Strong would have been good, as would One Man's Tale or even After Manzikert...

    And thanks for the heads up on the sig situation
    Maybe you could sell them as great starters

    And no worries about the sig
    THE WRITERS' STUDY | THE TRIBUNAL | THE CURIA | GUIDE FOR NEW MEMBERS



    PROUD PATRON OF JUNAIDI83, VETERAAN & CAILLAGH
    UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF MEGA TORTAS DE BODEMLOZE

  6. #6

    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Great stuff so far. Keep it up!
    The Wings of Destiny - A FotS AAR (Chapter 12 - Updated Apr 24)
    Takeda - a Shogun 2 AAR (Completed) Reviewed by Radzeer

    My writing | My art | About me | Sekigahara Campaign - Developer

    ~~Under the proud patronage of Radzeer, Rogue Bodemloze. Patron of Noif de Bodemloze, Heiro de Bodemloze, and Hitai de Bodemloze~~

  7. #7
    Mega Tortas de Bodemloze's Avatar Let's Get After It
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    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Outstanding this! Thank you sooo much for sharing your artistry...



    +Rep
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    then the weight of the evidence will still fall in your favor and carry the day

    The Casual Tortoise: Mega's Guide to Fast Turtling

  8. #8

    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Updated with poetry/songs, other stuff and a restored Restoring Rome
    ~

    RESTORING ROME - CHAPTER II: TRAGEDY OF THE KOMNENOI
    bitte sehr
    SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT - A VERY SPECIAL FELINE


  9. #9
    Audacia's Avatar Give Life Back to Music
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    Default Re: Schrödinger's Cat

    Fantastic stuff here, very clever! I'll be reading

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