Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment

From	Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net>
Newsgroups	sci.physics
Subject	Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment
Date	2016-04-26 13:37 -0600
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<571FC38D.2000701@comcast.net> (permalink)

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Schrodinger clearly believed that human consciousness was required
to collapse the wave function into either the "live cat" state or "dead cat"
state.  Penrose doesn't (see "Shadows of the Mind").  He suspects that
as the "measuring device" is made more complicated than a "quantum-sized"
object, at some degree of complexity, it would cause an actual physical
collapse of the wave function of the combined "radioactive atom plus
measuring device system".  I suspect Penrose, not Schrodinger, is correct.

It seems to me that this issue COULD have been easily resolved by
experiment in Schrodinger's time.  First, allow for the radioactive atom
to be removed from the box after the one-hour time interval that should
produce a 50/50 chance of a decay.  In addition, instead of putting a cat
in the box (which might have sufficient consciousness to itself cause the
collapse), just include a classical-sized "measurement device" that would,
upon a decay, turn off refrigeration of a bottle of milk in the box.  After
the one-hour interval, the experimenter removes and discards the
radioactive atom from the box (without examining it to determine if it
has decayed), and the leaves the box undisturbed for a week or so
(without determining in any way whether the refrigeration had been
turned off or not).  After a week or so, the experimenter opens the box.
If the milk is observed to be spoiled, then clearly the collapse happened
days ago, not just now by the conscious observation.

  -- Mike Fontenot

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Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-26 13:37 -0600
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "nuny@bid.nes" <Alien8752@gmail.com> - 2016-04-26 16:18 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-27 07:38 -0600
    Re: The milk was obviously spoiled (or not) for some time. Double-A <double-a3@hush.com> - 2016-05-01 13:58 -0700
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-27 07:28 -0600
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2016-04-27 11:48 -0500
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment benj <nobodyxx@gmail> - 2016-04-27 16:56 -0400
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Timo <timo@physics.uq.edu.au> - 2016-04-28 14:31 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-29 08:18 -0600
      Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Timo <timo@physics.uq.edu.au> - 2016-04-29 21:26 -0700
        Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-30 08:00 -0600
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 12:56 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "hanson" <hanson@quick.net> - 2016-04-29 13:02 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Double-A <double-a3@hush.com> - 2016-04-29 13:59 -0700
      Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 14:27 -0700
        Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "hanson" <hanson@quick.net> - 2016-04-29 18:30 -0700
        Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Double-A <double-a3@hush.com> - 2016-05-01 14:03 -0700

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