joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Spectacular architectural beauty, perfectly shot IMHO 🎯👀👀👀👀

Boris77

Ask the Cell Phone.
Boris

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Really? If you are referring to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, then please show how that profound question is categorized as an element of Quantum Physics. His cat was a simile, and not a grand philosophical truth. I am not familiar with the work of Roger Penrose, who he is also a theoretical physicist, mathematician, and philosopher of science. I doubt that anything he said was meant to apply outside the realms of those disciplines. That said, it is common for philosophers to question the nature of reality, and also common for them to ask rhetorical questions.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

It was Schrödinger's cat, not Heisenberg's.

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

Well...
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle shows that there is no ultimate knowledge about a system built on particles, a.k.a everything

Roger Penrose - besides other tons of math - has shown the Holographic Principle by which the whole Universe can be described in a 2D system. This does is no proof that the Universe is 2D (flat earth peolpe, HA!) , but it can be described that wah... which is intriguing and shows - again - that we don't perceive reality as it is
I would add that the very Standard Model with all the creepy thing it has inside (like tunneling, entanglement) would - again - show that we do not perceive reality... .

AND, this is a big *AND* it is a mistake to believe that all what happens in Physics is somehow limited to that realm, because the very aim of Pysics is to understand the Universe. So the laws, and theories of Physics apply not to some arcane academic realm, but to the very real Universe.

Besides, that the one of the cat was Schrödinger, and his poor dead/alive pet is not a "smile", but a very profound philosophical truth: particles *do exist in superposition*. The spin of an electron is simultaneously UP and DOWN. And it is very real: this is how quantum computers work: instead of having bits which are either "0" or "1", that gadgets use qbits which are simultaneously "1" AND "0" and everything in between (it is an eigen-vector BTW)

Every advancement of Physis, seem to show more and more that what we call reality might be just an illusion.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Where will the software get their input from?

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Agreed, some of the old synapses failed me. The Uncertainty Principle was Heisenberg's and Schrodinger used the cat to explain it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Understand. My aging meat memory also drops bits occasionally (frequently).

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle actually says something a little different from what most people think it says. What it actually says is that one cannot know a particle's position and velocity at the same time, because measuring one of those quantities by necessity changes the other one. It's been generalized from that, partially because who wouldn't want to invoke something called Heisengerg's Uncertainty Principle.

It turns out that the generalization can be shown to be appropriate for a number of other cases. Measuring the current in an electrical circuit changes the voltage a tiny bit, and measuring the voltage in that circuit increases the current being drawn ever so slightly. Measuring the temperature of liquid in a beaker warms or cools it a little when the thermometer is inserted.

Shroedinger's Cat is different. It is a thought experiment only. The only thing that can ever be directly observed is a dead cat. The experiment itself made no provision for distinguishing whether the cat just died or had been dead for some time.

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

No.

The poor pet was killed zillions of times to explain superposition not uncertainty.

Here it goes again:

In a box, there is a cat, a radioactive particle and a mechanism that smashes a vial of poison if the particle decais.

Because of the Copenhagen interpretation, until measured, every quantum system is in superposition of every possible state. So, until opened, the particle has decayed/not decayed, and therefore the cat is dead/alive

This can be easily shown mathematically, BTW...

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

“Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle shows that there is no ultimate knowledge about a system built on particles, a.k.a everything”

I think that is a reach. Didn't Heisenberg base his principle on the inability to trust our understanding of the quantum state of a particle because our attempts to observe that state may have altered it. It said nothing about anything outside of the quantum realm. And it said nothing about things observable by passive means.

“Roger Penrose - besides other tons of math - has shown the Holographic Principle by which the whole Universe can be described in a 2D system. This does is no proof that the Universe is 2D (flat earth peolpe, HA!) , but it can be described that wah... which is intriguing and shows - again - that we don't perceive reality as it is”

The existence of any exception to an assumed rule disproves; therefore, we must give up the assumption of a rule when a contra-example has been found. Just because we can describe a system such, as describing the universe using 2D rules, does not mean that the universe is 2D; rather, it means that the 2D supposition was based on incomplete or incorrect data or assumptions.

“I would add that the very Standard Model with all the creepy thing it has inside (like tunneling, entanglement) would - again - show that we do not perceive reality....”

How can we trust what the “very Standard Model” shows? It may, undoubtedly is, based on incorrect or incomplete data

“AND, this is a big *AND* it is a mistake to believe that all what happens in Physics is somehow limited to that realm, because the very aim of Pysics is to understand the Universe. So the laws, and theories of Physics apply not to some arcane academic realm, but to the very real Universe.”

Is it not also a mistake to believe that every single occurrence in every realm influences everything in every realm.

“Besides, that the one of the cat was Schrödinger, and his poor dead/alive pet is not a "smile", but a very profound philosophical truth: particles *do exist in superposition*. The spin of an electron is simultaneously UP and DOWN. And it is very real: this is how quantum computers work: instead of having bits which are either "0" or "1", that gadgets use qbits which are simultaneously "1" AND "0" and everything in between (it is an eigen-vector BTW)”

Schrodinger’s cat is indeed a simile. It is a hypothetical situation that shows how there can be something that cannot be known because the act of observing it may alter it. In that, it does not say anything about the idea that quantum particles can be spinning two different directions at the same time. In fact, it is a very poor example for that phenomenon because the cat cannot be both alive and dead simultaneously. The definition of death, “Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism,” precludes that possibility. The cat is either alive or dead before you observe it; definitely dead when you observe it.

“Every advancement of Physis, seem to show more and more that what we call reality might be just an illusion.”

Can’t argue with that; however, I prefer to think of it as lack of sufficient correct data, since distortion of reality is implied by the word "illusion".

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

The answer, to Life, The Universe, and Everything: 42.

The takeaway: Take care to make sure that you ask the right question.

Deep Thought, as quoted by Douglas Adams.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I would like to complain about the use of Schrödinger's cat as an example. Everyone is talking about a dead cat. The cat has a significant probability of being alive (and hungry) at the conclusion of the experiment.

OTOH, the thought experiment was proposed in 1935, so it is almost certain that the cat is now dead. I know of no examples of any cat living to the age of 88. But the cat did not die from the experiment.