Schrodinger's indifferent cat

“The real question is, does the cat get a say in this?” said Jerry, his gaze fixed on the air vent.

“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter,” said Page, he was irritated. 

What was he thinking? Jerry will never understand this, and once that happens, he will start making fun of it. Page will have to play the joker again. 

“What do you mean you don’t know?” asked Jerry.

“It’s hard, that's all I can say.” 

“What did you say was the name of the old scientist?”

“Schrodinger”

“Yeah, he is wrong. That is stupid.”

“You could be right,” said Page “We sure have a system that grants Nobel prize to the stupidest people.”

“Page... Bud.. you telling me that this guy got a Nobel prize?”

Page nodded. 

If that is the case then Jerry is the stupid one here. Jerry sure doesn't like to be the stupid one.

“Yeah you are right,” said Jerry “It is this sheer simplicity of physics that inspired me to quit college and join the army”

Using sarcasm as a defense, typical Jerry. 

Page gave him a disapproving look and moved towards the table. Jerry went a step further. He turned towards the corner where Roth and Lucas sat.

“Guys come here and listen to this, Page has this crazy scientific thing up his sleeve.”

Roth and Lucas were uninterested, but they had nothing good going on within those four walls, they moved towards the table.

“What are we talking about?” asked Roth.

“It’s about a cat and this old scientist.” Jerry replied, “Not that I want you to prove him wrong, but I strongly believe that you guys will have something to say once you hear it.”

This happens every time… every single time… the rest simply cannot accept that Page is the only educated one among them. He stood indifferent. 

Lucas took the chair opposite to Page. 

“Listen... bud,” said Lucas “you, know what we are having in excess here. You have it, I have it, we all have it and we want to spend it. ‘To kill it’ that might suit things better… Bud that which I am talking about is time... We have to sit and inch through time. So please grant us the privilege of listening to your rantings.”

“I promise to reserve all the jokes to the end. ” Roth added.

Page was still confused. Should he do it? It’s not like any of the other ‘stupid’ conversations they had... This one is a whole different league. If they take Schrodinger’s Cat literally, then the fable that follows will be enough for the trio to tease Page till he descends into his grave. But on the contrary, in the unlikely event that they are to be left free, then, maybe in the distant future, they might be invited to share a table with some distinguished personality. And if then, Lucas will most probably decide to ease the mood and insult Page by revisiting this fable. Lucas will finish and wait for a laugh, but then this distinguished personality being a man of science will ask “what’s so funny about it?”. Page will have the highly improbable final laugh. He decided to give it a go.

“It’s about this experiment that this scientist Schrodinger did…”

“What did he do?”

“Okay listen carefully. This old guy took a cat and placed it in a box, not just any box but a closed box, like the non-transparent airtight kind of box.. Anyway, this scientist placed this cat inside the box, and along with it, he places a vial of poison. Now this poison is like the super volatile stuff, the kind that when inhaled even in low dose could make you drop dead. It’s safe to say that the poison is like potassium cyanide, only twice as poisonous and in vapor form. Now, this glass vial of poison... This ‘fragile’ glass vial of poison is kept near a hammer which is connected to this Geiger counter. This working Geiger counter ticks when there is radioactive emission. Now, when this Geiger counter tick, it will let loose the hammer which breaks the vial. Mr. Schrodinger also kept a small radioactive substance in the said box, which emit radiation. The substance emits radiation super random, like out of the blue.”

Page paused for a moment and looked at the men. Roth and Lucas were listening intently, but Jerry was completely prejudiced and he had this grin on his face.

“You get the set up, right?” 

Both Lucas and Roth nodded.

“Now... here is what is going to happen… The cat and the said contraption are kept in this closed box. For the people outside, they could never know what is happening inside. The person outside, the ‘observer’ only knows that the cat will die sometime. So at any moment if we ask the observer whether the cat is dead or alive, he cannot say that without opening the box. That means the cat can be confirmed dead or alive only when the person opens the box and looks inside. So it can be said the cat is ‘either dead’ or ‘alive’ only when the person looks at him. So, in reverse, when the person is not looking, the cat is ‘neither dead’ nor ‘alive’ meaning it is dead and alive at the same time… you get me… both things are true at the same time.”

Both Page and Jerry waited for Lucas’ and Roth’s reply. The men looked confused. 

“I have to give credit to Jerry, ” Lucas said scratching his head “that which you said cannot be true. How can a cat be dead and alive at the same time? If it is a person then there is a chance, you know, being confined in that box, awaiting death, it could mentally kill strong men. Trust me, I have seen it. In those cases, he will be mentally dead before he actually dies. The little I know, I think cats are incapable of dying mentally, I mean how often have you heard of a cat dying out of depression. Then again mental breakdowns are termed death by poets, what we are speaking here is science bud. The cats cannot simply be alive and dead at the same time…”

Lucas had no idea that they were discussing a real scientific concept, for him, it's like some kind of a twisted riddle. No, Page shouldn’t have taken this route. And it became more prominent to him the moment Jerry patted on his shoulder and said: “Told you bud.”

Page waited for Roth’s reply. Roth was lost in thoughts. Page turned to Lucas-

“You are missing the point, it's not about the cat being dead and alive, it's about the person observing it. I mean the cat is dead or alive happened only because a person checked whether it is dead or alive. It is an example of an observer driven result. I will make this clear. Let's assume that the said box is kept right here in this table, and you two are asked to say whether the cat is dead or alive, What will you say?”

“It will be dead right?” said Roth. He had the excitement of finding the solution to that riddle. “Radioactivity is a messy business, the vial, the hammer, the Geiger counter aside, that piece of radioactive substance will kill the cat eventually, so the cat is not alive, it's dead, it's a dead cat!”

“Oh No, no, no, that is not even the point of our discussion,” said Page, “Okay, I will rephrase. How about within an hour of the cat being inside the box. Will it be dead or alive? Emission takes long, and radioactivity kills super slow, so the poison will kill the cat before the radioactivity catches up to him.”’

“In that case, the cat will definitely be alive. ” said Lucas conclusively.

Page looked at Lucas awaiting an explanation. 

“What... you said it yourself, that radioactive stuff will take a long time to act, so it won't be triggering the hammer and breaking the vial within an hour and the cat will be alive and kicking.”

Logic is taking a backlash, or is it?

“How exactly do you know that the vial didn’t break?” asked an irritated Page.

“Hey bud,” said Lucas, “that Schrodinger guy installed a Geiger counter inside the box, just listen to hear if it's ticking or not.”

Logic is intact, its Intellect that was being murdered. 

“No, no let me just rephrase again,” said Page “Okay let's say that there is a 50% chance that the radioactive stuff emits the radiation within one hour, and that the walls of the box are airtight that we cannot hear the Geiger counter when it is ticking. What then?”

“Just how big of a box are we speaking about right now?” asked a curious Roth.

“Let's say a two-by-two feet cube.”

“Then I will give the cat twenty-minute tops, beyond that he is definitely dead.” 

“Why?” asked a mortified Page.

“The bloody cat needs oxygen... radioactive and all those other stuff aside, the cat needs oxygen!”

For a second Page felt it. That is how it feels to be both dead and alive at the same time. He took a deep breath recomposed himself and said,

“Okay for god’s sake let’s assume that the box is filled with an oxygen tank that could run a full week. Now tell me, will the cat be dead or alive?”

“Does the cat have a say in this?” asked Lucas.

“That's exactly what I wanted to know!” said Jerry.

Okay, the conversation is pointless, but Lucas took the effort to explain.

“It's a cat that we are talking about not a dog. A dog will sit if we ask him to but the cats will do what he wants when he wants. He could easily mess up with the hammer and stuff you know”

“No wait,” the frustration was oozing out of Page, “Let’s assume that the cat is restrained.”

“Yeah... there it is, all that assuming” it was Roth, having found that both his answers to that ‘riddle’ was wrong, he took the best route he knew, “That is one thing that I hate about the so-called science. First, there is an assumption. Then they ask to proceed with the assumption and somewhere in between, when we are not looking, they make the assumption a fact. It is bloody propaganda. If we are to assume one thing, then we might as well assume the other.”

“The assumptions are always proved at the end right, that is the beauty of it. ” said Page.

Jerry stepped in with a cunning smile. “Allow me to demonstrate” Jerry took a white cloth from his pocket and placed it over a glass of water in that table, completely covering it. He turned to Page

“‘Assuming I have magic power, I say I could drink the glass of water without actually coming in contact with the towel. Does that prove that I have magical ability?.”

It was absurd. From a scientific point of view, if Jerry could pull off that seemingly impossible task, then Page will have to accept it. Not that Jerry possesses any magical ability, but that he could conjure teleportation. Far fetched results aside, that which Jerry claims is a direct mockery at Pages’ premise. No, the insults had gone far, Page demands his closure.

“The bloody cat it plastered to the wall of the bloody box with reinforced steel wire,” said Page, “It’s fed milk. It had the best meal of its lifetime. It went to poop just before the experiment, and now it is placed inside the box. Now tell me, in the first hour of the bloody experiment, will the bloody cat be dead or alive… What do you say?”

Lucas moved closer to Page. He wanted to explain.

“The cat is ‘either’ dead ‘or’ alive. Dead as in the heart stops beating and alive as in, coming out of the box with the same cunningness. The cat cannot be ‘both’ dead and alive at the same time…”

Page let out a sigh. He had it with Schrodinger and his cat. These men cannot be reasoned.

Jerry at this time was fast proceeding with his magic act. He took four steps back from the glass and the towel and was mimicking the action of drinking water from a distance.

Roth’s focus was on Page. He could read Page’s disappointment.

“Okay for your sake, let's ‘assume’ that the cat is both dead and alive.” said Roth “What then?”

“Nothing,” said Page, “It forms the basis of a simple idea that any observation is dependent on the person observing it. I mean certain things happen because and only because we were curious to observe. If we were not looking. then it would never happen.”

“And what does this have to do with us being trapped inside this prison? ” asked Lucas.

“I almost forgot. See we are trapped in here for four days. The people out there, they never tortured us. So it is safe to assume that they are either adhering to the trilateral POW agreement, or they are doing experiments on us without our knowledge... We could ‘either’ assume that they live by the convection ‘or’ we are being subjected to experiment”

“But never ‘both’ at the same time” added Roth.

“I get it,” said Lucas,“we are the cat in the box. Then again I will very well know that I am ‘either’ dead or ‘alive’. There is no middle ground. So I guess that the cat being either dead or alive was a stupid metaphor.”

“Just listen” said Page, “the metaphor is not about the cat. It's about the observer. The result occurs due to the observer. I was telling Jerry the same thing. I have read that they conduct experiments on human response to death stimulating conditions. The experiment in question has a setup much similar to this closed prison cell of ours. It also had an air vent much like the one we have over there. The subject is fed with no outside information or what is going to happen to them. They are intending to kill the subject by gassing, the catch being, they will only gas the subject if and only if the subject learns on their own without any external stimuli that they are going to be gassed to death. In turn, it's their knowledge that they are going to die, acts as the cause that triggered their death- the observer dictating the outcome.”

In any priority of discussion that should have been discussed first. Or should it be, because discussing that could have killed them all? Now they were aware of the elephant in the room. 

The three men stared at the vent.

“That’s one unlucky cat, he sure doesn't have a say. ” added Roth