h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Of all the recent talk about cats, I thought I might tell you my experience with my Schrodinger Cat (see my page). I love my Schrodinger Cat as it spends all of it's time in a box. Half the time I don't know if it is there.

It keeps me great company, and I would hate to open the box to see if it died.

My cat may be of the Schrodinger variety, albeit deprived of her box. If she sees a box she is straight in there. Tell me, what does a Schrodinger cat do if it has no box?

If it has no box, then it has survived the ordeal that a Schrodinger Cat goes through when in the box. Remember though they only have nine lives and that the more times they enter a closed box, the greater the chance of them not surving.

If you truely do have a Schrodinger Cat, then I would suggest that you love and care for your cat as if she is any normal cat, just try to keep them away from boxes that have geiger counters, and a vial of poisonous gases.

Please keep me inform of how your cat goes, if it continually survives getting into boxes then you have a Schrodinger Cat that has beaten the odds, or heaven forbid you have a cat that just loves boxes and tries to pretend to be a Schrodinger Cat

I've actually managed to breed a Schrodinger's Dog. They're quite difficult to keep in the box, though. My next attempt will be to create the Schrodinger's Flea Circus.

*LOL*

I can see it now, 'And for their next trick, the Schrodinger Fleaas will use the Pauli Exclusion Principle to jump not 1, not 2, but 3 nanometers'

I can't find a box for my Shrodinger Blue Whale. I thought maybe if I just turned off the lights in his bedroom?

Or do I have to have a box?

So much for Schrodingers Cats, what about Pavlovs spectactularly unsuccessful experiment " Pavlov's Cats." Very little was learnt apart from the feline aversion to marmite. The results were never published.

Hmmm.... if you can keep the room air tight, and sound proof, then technecially you would not be able to determine whether the whale is alive or dead, and whether it is in or out of the room, so then you would actually have a Schrodinger Whale.

I suggest though that you pump a lot of air into the room, because if you leave the whale in the room for too long the whale may be dead not by the poisonous gas, but by having no air.

This also brings me to another point, unless you have heaps of Schrodinger Krill in the room with the whale, your Schrodinger whale will die of starvation.

I had a Schrodinger Tadpole once, but strangely enough it turned into a frog and died.

Some results did slip through the net, for example

'Monday - Cat has now been under observation for 4 weeks. Rang bell. Cat said it had eaten earlier.
Tuesday - Cat had removed clapper and was asleep.'

Did Pavlov try placing a bird near the cat? I am sure that he would have gotten better results. How about some lasagne? It makes Garfield move...

Anyway, Pavlov wasn't a physicist, so he got to play around with real animals (not that I condone the use of animals in experiments).

Open the box, take the money!

Ok, but I don't see how that is going sort out the problem of me not being allowed to use real animals. Oh, btw, how much money was in the box?

Perhaps enough for another tadpole?

What experiment could I do on a tadpole... Geah some people.

Using some obscure form of genetic engineering, you could possibly make one side turn into a frog, and the other side stay as a tadpole. Purely for the advancement of scientfic knowledge, you understand.

That or just put it back in the box where the money had been. Actually you didn't ask if it would be valuable, you simply asked how much money you'd won by taking the box. (You did take the box, right?)



'Nonnie

Wel if that is all I am going to get from the box, I think I might just curl up inside it. At least i know I will be safe until someone opens the box

If your safety depends on keeping the box closed, I woudln't suggest it here. There are a lot of kitties about, and you know about kitties and curiosity. (Not to mention.. *ahem* .. Other Curious Creatures... )

Well, you can open the box, or go for the mystery star prize.

Think carefully

(Waves £5000 temptingly...)

Off to one side was a mirror.

*Hmmm ... I like mirrors.*

The mirror started rippling, as of water which someone has dropped a stone in. Through it stepped a tall, youngish man with hair that seemed disarrayed, yet stylish. He was wearing a blue jumpsuit. He wore around his neck a medallion showing a yellow circle, a black plus sign, and in the upper-right and lower-left quadrants, a white circle; in the upper-left and lower-right quadrants, a black circle. His shirt and belt buckle shared this. His name is Aerol Nex.

He said, "Greetings."