The Quantum Divide: Why Schrödinger's Cat is Either Dead or Alive
- Christopher C. Gerry &
- Kimberley M. Bruno
OXFORD UNIV. PRESS: 2013. 197 pp. $44.95
Quantum mechanics and quantum information feature many eccentric characters, from the personality-split photon to the omnipresent Alice and Bob. But without any doubt Schrödinger's cat is the star: John Gribbin's In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, with its sequel Schrödinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality, as well as science-fiction novels such as Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy and so on. Few popular science books on quantum mechanics fail to mention “spooky action at a distance”, and even fewer omit the famous feline. Why is the cat so popular, and how did it become iconic for quantum mechanics? It may be because it is the only accessible visual representation of a field so full of abstract and counter-intuitive concepts. So to avoid the headache in trying to imagine how simultaneously being a wave and particle would look (don't even try to imagine entangled states), it might be better to think of a dead and alive cat. This image is neither particularly illuminating nor beautiful — perhaps even disturbing for cat-lovers — but at least it feels tangible.
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