The Cheshire cat would be mad indeed. In a world where "the dark religions are departed and sweet Science reigns", cats seem to have it worse than ever. And for no good reason, either.
Most of us are familiar with Schroedinger's Cat in some way or another: the notion that all possible events coexist in the same waveform until an observation is made, upon which the waveform collapses to a single event, has been made public knowledge, mostly due to its successful example. The illustration Schroedinger used to demonstrate his concept was that of a cat locked in a solid box which has equal chances of drinking good or poisoned milk according to whether a radioactive material decays within a certain amount of time or not. Whatever happens, Schroedinger argued, the cat exists in both states, alive and dead, until it is actually observed and its state verified.
Then, another illustration saw the light of day, named Interfering Schroedinger's Cat, which, in its way, led to yet another proposal entitled Really Interfering Schroedinger's Cat. And the question this reporter would like to ask physicists is "What's your problem with cats anyway?"
Cats have been abused since the beginning of time, as seen by them wearing ridiculous jewellery in Pharaoh-era hieroglyfics, and were even condemned as the familiars of witches during the dark ages. All the while, they have never given the slightest provocation, but have rather gone about their business in a manner which demonstrates a clear superiority to all things human. Is this what aggravates physicists? Is their weird obsession with cats merely a product of their well-documented insecurity?
The argument that it is only an illustration and not an actual experiment is futile: everybody knows that you just can't trust physicists not to organise such an experiment under strict (and rather expensive) laboratory conditions thinking they can always take a quick peek inside the box before actually looking inside the box, effectively catching nature in its sleep. They just have this kind of mentality! How else would they have developed horrors like the chicken gun?
We need to radically alter our way of thinking if such phenomena are to be eliminated. How can such a change be forced, though? How can cats regain the respect and social status they deserve? How can we all, to put it in a nutshell, awaken the Alice inside us? |
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For one, we should let instinct take over from experience and guide us. How much more exciting would the world be if we saw it for the first time after each blink, like felines so naturally do? And what science we'd be able to create - and good science at that! A major step towards that would be to force physicists, legally or otherwise, to use forms of life lower on the evolutionary scale to achieve their goals, like insects or transport ministers. If that means locking them inside dark cells and occasionally forcing poisoned milk down their throats, this reporter's opinion is "so be it": all they'd have to do is never be seen again and no harm would come of it, certainly not to the rest of us.
Should we fail to take these simple measures, they'll be grinning all the way through the utter destruction of all morality, sense and reason. And when everything has been reduced to dust, will that grin remain? |
