Schrödinger’s Cat: A Story from the Almost Real World
Strange things happen, unexpected things, here at my house. It’s in a quiet woods, a small stream running just behind. We live with turkeys, squirrels, and deer, and the more elusive coyote and fox. Day and night, they amble or scurry by, just off the patio. Decades ago, I left my first teaching job, got married, joined my husband here. I’ve lived by the mantra that things work out. I’d been an assistant professor and had a decision to make: stay, and go where the job would lead me? or leave for love? I chose love. And yes, I eventually began teaching again. Now retired, and lately feeling the need to challenge my aging brain cells, I’ve been ending my days bundled up in bed, reading about quantum physics. That brings me to my late friend Ralph, who is strangely wrapped up in this story. An aging bachelor, his office was next to mine at that first job. It, oddly, brings me, too, to Schrödinger’s cat, the hypothetical cat in a hypothetical box, who is dead or alive when the box is opened—one theory being that its fate is determined, somehow, by being observed. Don’t worry. The heart of this story is not physics.
Recent Comments