In 1935, physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment which suggested that an unobserved cat under perilious conditions was simultanteously dead and alive. Now scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Quantum Physics in Garching, Germany hope to place a virus into two quantum states as a test of that thought experiment:
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Image: U.S. Department of Energy
The team hope to trap a virus in a vacuum using an electromagnetic field created by a laser. Then, with another laser, the team would slow down the virus's movement until it sits motionless in its lowest possible energy state.
Once the virus is fixed, the team will use a single photon to put the virus into a quantum superposition of two states, where it is either moving or not. Until it is measured, the virus should exist in a superposition of motion and stillness.
The team suggest that tobacco mosaic virus, a rod-shaped plant virus measuring about 50 nanometres wide and almost 1 micrometre long, would be an ideal candidate for the experiment. While there is still debate about whether such viruses can really be classed as alive, the experiment could even be extended to tiny organisms, the scientists say. Microscopic tardigrades, or water-bears, can survive in the vacuum of space for days, and may be suitable for the same sort of Schrödinger treatment.
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Image: U.S. Department of Energy
Does Schrödinger's Cat conflict with the Law of Non-Contradiction?
Since the particles within a solid mass like a cat (or indeed a virus) are always interacting with each other, they would either never enter a superposition, or if they did, would do so individually and not stay that way for long.
But hey, maybe I've got it all wrong. The experimenters seem to think so.
The great public debates of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Einstein et al. about the applicability of subatomic theory to superatomic objects ranged from absurdity to theology. They did, however, lead to things such as semiconductors, nanotechnology and superconductivity. All of which prove that it is possible to build large objects that demonstrate subatomic properties.
@nickolas_warner
Your flatmate is a zombie!?! That's so cool!
The system containing the cat is in a well-defined state at all times. However, the definition of a quantum state doesn't always map well onto our classical intuitions. A single particle may be in a well defined quantum state, but that state may not tell you much about what answer you'd get if you measure the particle's position.
Physicists often define a subset of allowed quantum states in a system (often energy eigenstates) as a basis of "pure states", and then call other allowed states superpositions of these states. They express the superposition as a weighted sum of pure states.
@6:
It sounds like you're talking about decoherence. Yes, eventually interactions between particles will disrupt a superposition that one of them might be in. Here, though, it sounds like they are putting the whole organism into a superposition of states, not an individual particle within it. Also, the lasers are cooling the organism to a very low temperature, which would slow decoherence and extend the life of the superposition.
Seems trying to measure this would be self-defeating.
That's where this whole thing stopped making sense to me.
Can't we just reconfigure the deflector array, replace a skeleton with adamantium, and steer clear of the ion storm?
Y'know...like that.
Nah, some of us just have gotten really good at faking it.
No, actually there are cats on it, and there are no cats on it. If you are reading Neatorama, all the cats are dead.