Pursuant to my earlier requests, or think of them as 'directions for use', please allow for the uninterrupted playback of the song below, and I suggest you put in your earphones.
Also, in the beginning the song may seem not all that good, believe me it gets so much better, and it enhances this reading experience.
Oh and this article is not about physics. The next two paragraphs are simply necessary in order to explain the title of this post.
Schrödinger was a physicist in the early 20th century. He is most famously known for his thought experiment, popularly known as '
Schrödinger's Cat'.
While a full explanation of this experiment, and it's underlying mechanics would take a much longer and a much more boring and more uninteresting post (however so much you might find this one to be).
At its most trivial, although
do read this carefully carefully, think of it simply as follows -
There is a cat. It is kept in an opaque, steel chamber. In that chamber, in a setup that insulates it from any interference from the cat, is a tiny amount of radioactive material - so tiny that in the course of an hour, there is equal probability of the radioactive substance releasing a single atom because of decay as there is of it not releasing it. This radioactivity, if present, is to be detected by a Geiger counter (essentially a device which detects nuclear radiation). On detecting radiation, the geiger counter is to initiate a mechanism that releases deadly hydrocyanic gas in the chamber, which would kill the cat.
Now at any given moment, without observation, the living status of the cat, is a smeared function. Smeared as in, it is a superposition of the cat's states of being either living or dead because of the probabilistic nature of the atom's decay inside the chamber. It is a simultaneously decreasing and increasing function of the probability of the cat's being alive or dead, respectively.
In pure layman's terms, theoretically, at any given moment, Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead, at the same time.
Again, purely theoretically.
Of course, on observation, the cat's status of being either dead or alive can be determined.
This is simply one of the many seeming absurdities and parodoxes in quantum mechanics.
Moving on, as part of my increasingly absurd insights into human relationships, I propose 'Schrödinger's Relationship'.
When I was very young, there were husbands and wives, and there were other, single men and women who were friends.
It was a purely deterministic environment. You were either married, or you were friends.
I wasn't mature enough then perhaps, to know too much about love, its infinite traps and its own fallacies; or aware of attraction - physical, sexual or otherwise.
But alas, I did become aware eventually and bam! Four states - friends, love interests, girl/boy friends and spouses.
Later, as I became older and lost some of that little boy innocence, the interests category was infused with the first real probabilistic uncertainty - degrees of attraction. Of course, around this time, I was beginning to see the signs that friendships sometimes turned into attraction, which sometimes turned into girl/boy friend relationships, which had the potential to turn into marriage.
Lines were starting to get blurred everywhere. You get the idea.
This is all of course, quite general, and not really the subject of my post. The subject of my post is 'Schrödinger's Relationship'. This special little bugger is a real bitch.
Now, remember 'Schrödinger's Cat' -
There is a boy and a girl. They are kept in relative proximity, say they spend a period of time together, perhaps school, perhaps college, or work...perhaps chance brings them together. In that proximity, there are lots of stimuli - there are biological stimuli, psychological, spatial, visual, fuck even olfactory stimuli. There is an equal probability that these stimuli, in the course of these two individuals' interaction will cause them to engage in a blatantly obvious sexual relationship, and please do not misunderstand me, by sexual I do not mean the physical aspect of it, I use the term merely to distinguish it from the platonic alternative. And by blatantly obvious, I mean that everyone is aware of it's existence, including the participants. There is an equal probability of this happening, and that of it not happening.
But here in lies the rub.
This is still a probabilistic setup, and the relationship status of these two damned souls is smeared.
In pure layman's terms, theoretically, these two people are both just friends and dating at the same time.
Again, purely theoretically, the poor bastards.
Of course, on observation -
Wait...
This here is the real bitch of the matter.
Observation.
What if these two people, unaware, blissfully unaware, unobservant and innocent, carry on like this - smeared. Neither here, nor there.
In...limbo...oh.
Observation.
Here is where you have to make a choice. Here is where the beauty of a probabilistic function is forced into becoming a draconian deterministic choice. Either here, or there.
When one of the two decides to observe their relationship, casts an observant but critical look over it, it cannot exist in that glorious smeared state any more. It has to choose to either exist in one state or the other.
But to observe it or not to observe it, that, there, is the god-damned question.
To make it blatantly obvious, or not to. That, there, wins you the million dollars.
