The Schrödinger Cat Experiment Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 210-2):

Many physicists feel very uneasy about large systems having wave properties that play a part in the outcome of experiments. One reason for their concern is that it is possible to envisage arranging for two waveforms which represent very different macroscopic states to overlap and interfere with one another. The most famous example of this was dreamed up by Schrödinger. It consists of a cat incarcerated in a box containing a flask of cyanide and a hammer poised above the glass (Figure 36).

A small source of radioactivity is arranged so that if, after a certain period of time, an alpha particle is emitted, this is detected by a Geiger counter and triggers the fall of the hammer, which breaks the flask and kills the cat. The scenario provides a memorable demonstration of the paradoxical nature of quantum reality. 

One can imagine a situation in which, after the specified time, the alpha particle's wave lies partly within the nucleus and has partly tunnelled out. This might correspond, for example, to equal probability that the alpha particle had, or had not, been ejected by the nucleus. Now the rest of the stuff in the box — Geiger counter, hammer, poison and the cat itself — can also be treated as a quantum wave. One can therefore envisage two possibilities. 

In one case the atom decays, the hammer falls, and the cat is dead. In the other case, which has equal probability, none of this happens and the cat remains alive. The quantum wave must incorporate all possibilities, so the correct quantum description of the total contents of the box must consist of two overlapping and interfering waveforms, one corresponding to a live cat, the other to a dead cat. 

In this ghostly hybrid state, the cat cannot be regarded as definitely either dead or alive, but in some strange way both. Does this mean we can perform the experiment and create a live-dead cat? No! If the experimenter opens the box, the cat will be found to be either alive or dead. It is as if nature suspends judgment on the fate of the poor creature until somebody peeks. But this raises the obvious question: what is going on inside the box when nobody is looking?

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, 'live cat' or 'dead cat' constitute the system of potential meanings to be construed. It is only when an observation is made that one meaning or the other is instantiated. Put simply, the cat is potentially alive or dead, not actually alive and dead. And, when nobody is looking inside the box, no goings-on are being construed.