QBism by Hans Christian von Baeyer

Author:Hans Christian von Baeyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

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QBism Saves Schrödinger’s Cat

Schrödinger’s cat is probably the most famous feline in the world, but not all physicists are fond of it. I once attended a lecture by Stephen Hawking in which he exclaimed in the mechanical cadence of his voice synthesizer: “When I hear someone mention Schrödinger’s cat I reach for my gun!”1 The QBist pioneer Chris Fuchs also dislikes the animal and told me that he has always preferred to worry about Wigner’s friend instead. The cat is a victim of its own fame. Popular culture has encrusted its story with so much misunderstanding, mockery, and outright nonsense that most physicists try to avoid it. But since, at the advanced age of eighty, it’s still effective in making a point, I revive it yet once more.

Here’s the setup: A living cat is shut up in a box together with a Rube Goldberg arrangement consisting of a Geiger counter, an atom freshly rendered radioactive by neutron bombardment, a hammer, and a vial of poison gas. When the atom decays, as it must eventually do, the Geiger counter clicks and emits an electrical signal, which triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial, which releases the gas, which kills the cat. Instantly and painlessly.

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