APOD: Split the Universe (2022 Apr 24)

[APOD Robot]

Split the Universe

Explanation: Just now, before you hit the button, two future universes are possible. After pressing the button, though, you will live in only one. A real-web version of the famous Schrödinger's cat experiment clicking the red button in the featured astronaut image should transform that image into a picture of the same astronaut holding one of two cats -- one living, or one dead. The timing of your click, combined with the wiring of your brain and the millisecond timing of your device, will all conspire together to create a result dominated, potentially, by the randomness of quantum mechanics. Some believe that your personally-initiated quantum decision will split the universe in two, and that both the live-cat and dead-cat universes exist in separate parts of a larger multiverse. Others believe that the result of your click will collapse the two possible universes into one -- in a way that could not have been predicted beforehand. Yet others believe that the universe is classically deterministic, so that by pressing the button you did not really split the universe, but just carried out an action predestined since time began. We at APOD believe that however silly you may feel clicking the red button, and regardless of the outcome, you should have a thought-provoking day. Or two.

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[XgeoX]

Someone should have put dinger in a box and see how he liked it!

Eric

[wolfie138]

i got the dead cat \o/

[Locutus76]

4 dead cats in a row. I sure hope the universe isn’t trying to tell me something…

[heehaw]

Fabulous! But, you don't tell us what 'random' number generator is used. I fear it is NOT really random. Genuine random only comes from e.g. radioactive decay.

[orin stepanek]

kitty not too happy!

[rwlott]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Good Lord! I've heard about this. Cats juggling!

-Russell

[Chris Peterson]

Fabulous! But, you don't tell us what 'random' number generator is used. I fear it is NOT really random. Genuine random only comes from e.g. radioactive decay.

That, of course, is the million dollar question. Are things we consider truly stochastic, like radioactive decay or the formation and annihilation of virtual particles, actually random? If the Universe were to form again, in exactly the same way, would the pattern of stochastic events be different or would they repeat themselves? It's a hot area of discussion in both science and philosophy, and so far, we have no way of answering the question.

[richard_schumacher]

The universe doesn't split dynamically. All possibilities for all of time already exist (the eternalism view of the block universe, as required by relativity, with QM added). Pushing the button, or launching a photon at a double slit, or whatever, just tells each parallel-world version of you the particular parallel-world that version of you is in.

[Fred the Cat]

Quantum entanglement is the

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

magic of our time. That, or dark matter. Maybe there’s a abstract correlation?

Can tardigrades live in a Bose Einstein condensate? Only if they’re dark tardigrades.

[Bobc4d@gmail.com]

As an animal lover in general and cat lover in particular I found so-cslled astronomy picture of the day most disagreeable, disgusting and contemptible. Shame on the authors specifically for posting this and NASA for condoning it. I have been a NASA proponent for over 50 years. I may have to rethink my support.

[E Fish]

I don't like cats much, but I've had the cute living kitten every time. I was starting to question whether or not there was a dead cat possibility at all.

As an animal lover in general and cat lover in particular I found so-cslled astronomy picture of the day most disagreeable, disgusting and contemptible. Shame on the authors specifically for posting this and NASA for condoning it. I have been a NASA proponent for over 50 years. I may have to rethink my support.

You realize, I hope, that no cat has been killed, nor has there even been an advocation for it to happen. This is a classic thought experiment proposed by Schrodinger against the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (or at least the implications of it). The article is a fascinating read, actually.


Edit: I clicked a number of times and finally got the dead cat (which was a cartoon, as I suspected it would be).

[johnnydeep]

As an animal lover in general and cat lover in particular I found so-cslled astronomy picture of the day most disagreeable, disgusting and contemptible. Shame on the authors specifically for posting this and NASA for condoning it. I have been a NASA proponent for over 50 years. I may have to rethink my support.

I wouldn't worry too much about it: cats have nine lives. Also, as I'm sure you're aware, they didn't use a cat in this APOD because they hate cats: it's modelled after the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, which is somewhat more gruesome since it utilizes a flask of poison to kill the cat. And most likely, the "box" in the experiment was chosen because all cats seem to love boxes, and have an innate desire to be in them!

[Mary Lu Larsen]

I've always hated Schroedinger's Paradox. I feel sorry for the cat. It is especially poignant with the cute kitten.
I got the cat alive twice.
Mary L

[Galaxian]

When a famous University performed the cat experiment in the 1970's, upon opening the box the found the cat was neither dead nor alive but missing.

After investigating and never finding the cat, they tried again some months later. At the opening of the box on the second run of the experiment the researchers found not a live cat, not a dead cat, not even a missing cat but a very confused dog.

Meanwhile, my Opera browser has decided that QM is entirely bogus, that the cosmos does not split and that the button has no effect on anything. When mousey-clicked, the initial image just sits there. Opera thinks that the universe is deterministic.

My Safari browser disagrees. That one gives me a seemingly unending stream of live kittens. That is nice. I like kittens.

[WWW]

Fabulous! But, you don't tell us what 'random' number generator is used. I fear it is NOT really random. Genuine random only comes from e.g. radioactive decay.

That, of course, is the million dollar question. Are things we consider truly stochastic, like radioactive decay or the formation and annihilation of virtual particles, actually random? If the Universe were to form again, in exactly the same way, would the pattern of stochastic events be different or would they repeat themselves? It's a hot area of discussion in both science and philosophy, and so far, we have no way of answering the question.

Seems this has been answered:
.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[johnnydeep]

Fabulous! But, you don't tell us what 'random' number generator is used. I fear it is NOT really random. Genuine random only comes from e.g. radioactive decay.

That, of course, is the million dollar question. Are things we consider truly stochastic, like radioactive decay or the formation and annihilation of virtual particles, actually random? If the Universe were to form again, in exactly the same way, would the pattern of stochastic events be different or would they repeat themselves? It's a hot area of discussion in both science and philosophy, and so far, we have no way of answering the question.

Seems this has been answered:
.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

That was great. I knew I shouldn't have stopped watching Futurama! Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence for the win. (Though Nietzsche wasn't the first to formulate the theory, he had a unique take on it.)

[ptahhotep]

Odd, I got a live cat that promptly changed to a dead one.