Monday, January 17, 2011

SCHRODINGER'S CAT

      I can hear you saying now what is ,Schrodinger's Cat.Good question. those of you that are conversant with quantum mechanics then nothing futher needs to be said.Now for the rest of you,Schrodinger's Cat is a paradox that is used to describe elements of quantum mechanics. This post is only going to deal with one aspect of quantum mechanics that of the ,nature of time,I will breifly describe the paradox that is Schrodinger's cat. Once I have done that, we will get to the topic at hand,time.By the end of the discussion the way you view the world and the universe could be turned upside down.
      The paradox describes an experiment about the prinicples of quantum mechanics. In this expertiment, a cat is placed inside of a box.Now according to the general princepals of quantum mechanics the cat can either be alive or dead.Which condition the cat is in can't be known until the observer opens the box and looks. Pretty straight forward but according to quantum mechanics the mere act of observing changes what the observer will see.That's Schrodinger's cat in a nut shell.
     Now back to the topic at hand, that of time.The way in which we view time has been the same since man first appeared on this planet,a few million years ago.Time is a straight line,were we proceed from one point to the next.All the points that came before the point we are at is considered the past.The past cannot be changed, after all it has already happened.Any point that is in front of us is considered to be the future.The future has yet to happen. It can be changed by the actions that we take now, but it cannot be known.That is time,ridged and measurable.That is the assumption we have always considered to be reality.But that just might be in reality wrong.
      If one looks at the mathmatics that describe quantum mechanics one finds a very curious fact. That the math describing the behavior of particles at the quatum level show that particles can move both backwards and forwards in time.The math is solid, and in fact it has been verified by experiments that seem to show that the behavior of particles in the past can be changed by events that happen in the future. Its a hard concept to wrap ones head around. That what is happening now can be influenced by events that have yet to happen.
      Well, my friends, there is only one possible explantion that fits these facts.That time that we consider to be a reality is in fact a mirage.It does not exist as we believe.Einstein once said that time existed to keep everything from happening at the same time.He said this before quantum mechanics was really developed, and we began to view the universe in a completely different way.Time does not exist. There is no past nor future just an enternal now, in which everything that has happened ,is happening, or will happen coexist all at the same time.Add to this the concept of paralel universes,membrane and string theory,and we have a very strange yet wonderous universe.Just think, if quantum mechanics is right your sixth birthday party and your nineth birthday party are happening right now.Just one more thing for you to consider,Buddhists have always believed in this concept of time. The eternal now. So I ask you this,how do you view time now.Interesting possibilites stretch before us, depending on how we view time.

2 comments:

  1. At first I wasnt sure where you were going with this one, but you explained it all very well.
    nice post !

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  2. Zen = Beyond Thinking...What matters most is what's really "NOW"

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