It was apparent that Meera was upset. She was holding on with great fortitude. However it was her friend Nitya who was having a hard time holding her anger in check.
Meera: You don’t have anything to prove it. I really think you are over reacting. Just leave it… Let me see how it unfolds…
Nitya: How can you just wait like that? You have always held the bull by the horns! Wouldn’t you rather know than wonder. I mean the signs are all there why not just ask?
Meera: Because the signs are inconclusive! There are enough logical reasons to justify why he behaved that way. It does not really mean anything untoward. But given the emotional situation we both are in right now, I don’t think I should go for a confrontation. I may push this too far. I’d rather wait to get clarity before asking.
Nitya: (With a theatrical shrug of acceptance) Okay! Wait if you must! But I am just curious… What do you think made him do this?
Science murmured: Curiosity will kill the cat…
God: What? I didn’t get you?
Science: Well Father! There is a saying that curiosity will kill the cat. It is actually a reflection of a quantum principle.
God: Wow! Cats and quantum mechanics… Now I am curious… (with a smile) Pray go on…
Science: Erwin Schrodinger proposed a theoretical experiment in 1935 to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us about the nature and behaviour of matter in the microscopic level and what we observe in the macroscopic level. It illustrates the principle of superposition in quantum theory.
God: Hmmm… Superposition is a challenging concept. It means while we don’t have conclusive knowledge on what the state of any object is, it is actually in all possible states simultaneously, as long as we don’t look to check, right?
Science: Exactly! So as long as you don’t know the outcome of something, it actually exists with all possible outcomes simultaneously. This was inferred using the double-slit experiment where a beam of light was aimed at a barrier with two vertical slits with the resulting pattern being recorded on a photographic plate. When the beam of light is slowed down, we would expect the beam of light hitting the plate would be two lines of light aligned with the slits. However, instead of the single photon going through one slit or the other and ending up in one of two possible light lines, each photon not only goes through both slits but simultaneously takes every possible trajectory en route to the target resulting in multiple lines in varying degrees of lightness and darkness.
God: Yes I remember the experiment. It was illustrated by Thomas Young. But that is at the quantum level. How about the macroscopic level of the world.
Science: Schrodinger’s analogy of the cat explains how superposition operates in everyday world. The experiment goes like this: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states.
God: So the cat remains dead and alive simultaneously.
Science: Yes. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). So we use the term ‘curiosity kills the cat’ for if the observer had not tried to find out, the cat could still be alive. This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer’s paradox: the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made. That is, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.
God: Hence your comment to the woman, don’t let curiosity kill the cat and force your man to make a choice he is perhaps not yet ready to make!
Science: Yes! Right now his actions are not a conscious decision. By forcing him to make a choice, you may inadvertently force him to make the wrong choice!
God: I understand your logic but how about this…
Nitya: Ok! I am willing to accept that forcing him to see what he is really doing may result in him taking the decision to leave you. But isn’t that better than live indeterminately?
Meera: (Looking at her keenly) Are you looking for some excuse to hang him? Because if that is what this is, you are doing fine!
Nitya: Of course I am not! I really want things to work for you two. But I also think you should force him to commit…
God: What would be your answer to this situation?
Science: Father, to a quantum physicist, classical physics is a black and white image of a technicolor world. The same goes for relationships that try to confine definitive expressions unwilling to explore and understand the rich hues of human emotions. In the Schrodinger experiment, he discusses how the information about the cat’s health leaks into its environment in a process called decoherence. Decoherence theory reveals that the tiniest interaction with the environment transforms a quantum state to a classical state. For example in the Schrodinger cat experiment, if a friend was accommodated inside the box with the cat to observe the proceedings, and the experiment was observed from outside by another person, to the person outside the cat is in a superposition – dead and alive, but to the person inside the cat is in a definitive state – dead or alive, not both. We say the person outside has not ‘collapsed’ the state. But to the observer inside the box it has destroyed the superposition. Any interaction between the two observers will change the outsider’s position from a quantum state to a classic state.
God: That doesn’t answer my question. Is it right to live in ‘superposition’ with regard to a relationship reconciling that curiosity will kill the cat, or is it better to move into a definitive classical state of knowing one way or another?
Science: I don’t think there is a universal option here Father. It cannot be generalized. But more so I would like to believe the uncertainty principle can be used to man’s advantage to maneuver to the desired outcome.
God: How so?
Science: The quantum state believes in superposition or the existence of all possible outcomes simultaneously. Collapsing the superstate into a definitive outcome is the result of our observation. Shrodinger also introduced the quantum effect of entanglement in his cat experiment. Entanglement binds together individual particles into an indivisible whole with strange consequences. Even when the entangled particles are far apart, they still behave as one entity. When you measure one of the entangled particles, you can predict the measurement of the other for they behave in synchronicity. When too much information leaks out in decoherence, it becomes difficult to retain the entanglement as they begin to entangle with stray particles obscuring the original interconnections.
God: (With a smile) In other words as long as you don’t let the outsiders inside, you remain entangled in your relationship. According to Quantum theory, this entanglement is the primary principle, even more than space and time! They interconnect quantum systems without reference to space and time events.
Science: Yes Father! Here we could call that entanglement ‘love’. It interconnects the relationship without references to time and space events. Yes in love, we are all in a quantum limbo – in an entangled state of confusion and wonder. But killing the cat (or letting it live for that matter) should be out of choice not curiosity! It is time to ensure the information leakage is counteracted and the quantum limbo of superposition preserved.
Written by Gita Krishna Raj | Published in infinithoughts in January 2013
When Science met God… | Segment Six: Lost in Time | Chapter Six: Curiosity will kill the cat
