The Obvious Is Not Always Obvious.

I was drifting in Dublin the other week, happy to wander the streets. I chanced upon Merrion Square, a place I hadn’t been in many years. Could I find what I was looking for?  Did I dream it?  There it is!  The house of the famous theoretician Erwin Schrodinger.

As most of you will know, Erwin made a famous ‘thought experiment’ to prove a point about Quantum Mechanics.  You need capital letters for Big Ideas like those.  I wont go into it, it’s too complex, but essentially, he was able to prove that things, especially cats, can be in two states simultaneously.  This involves putting cats in boxes… never an easy task.

The boxed cat can be said to exist or not exist, or both.  I don’t know why he went to such trouble to work this out… he’d obviously never lived with a cat.  When you’re talking to a cat that isn’t listening (talking at a cat) it will make it quite clear that, despite appearances, it doesn’t exist at the moment. You don’t exist either, as far as the cat is concerned.

Given a different aspect of that other dimension, time,  the cat will choose to exist.  This can easily be seen at dinner time.

I have known for a long time that cats can exist in many states simultaneously. They can also travel through time, but that’s another story. You may have noticed  a cat clamouring at the door to got out…  ‘Didn’t I just let you out… or in?’   If you’re really lucky you might spot your cat at both sides of the door howling to come in/go out. It’s a minor temporal anomaly.

Schrodinger spent decades trying to establish the bleedin’ obvious. Just ask a cat.

Postscript. In later life Erwin found himself a nice white cat and became a Bond Villain.