“This is what you SO richly deserve for watching anime at ungodly hours and inevitably being curious afterwards…” – I could have sworn this sentence was flashing mockingly like an orange-neon sign on the wall facing my catatonic self.
I sometimes cannot reign in my innate curiosity.
Well, if curiosity killed the cat, in my case, I devoutly hope it selectively kills the pimples part of me resulting from the lack of sleep. My bleary-eyed, shiny-nosed face staring at the computer screen’s spewed-out list from googling “Schrödinger” at 4 a.m., was undoubtedly going to be lavishly decorated with those little buggers.
How in the world did I end up at 4 in the morning trying to wrap my itty-bitty gray cells around the concepts of quantum mechanics?
The only “quantum” I’ve ever dabbled in was the tv show “Quantum Leap” and yet I have valiantly (you can interchange that with “foolishly”) leaped into this unknown territory.
I gazed incredulously at the simplistic drawing which was supposed to illustrate the “thought experiment”, nay, the “paradox” – or rather…the resulting “Verschränkung”.
Maybe I could get away by innocently citing old age? Or maybe I could use mental exhaustion as an excuse? Uhmm, how about anime overdose?
But I had re-read the paragraph about Schrödinger’s cat for the second time, or was it third?…and my synapses rebelled by determinedly marching off to bed in their signature Hello Kitty pajamas (traitors, the whole lot of them!) while the rest of my body was still draped uncomfortably on the prickly-looking chair – leaving me vapidly gazing like one of Hellsing’s ghouls into the computer screen – though at least, my mouth was not agape with dripping drool.
“… A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation….”
*Groan*
“…. and all this mental exercise just because I wanted to know how Alucard died? Bloody vampires! ” was my fading thought as I surrendered my head to the strangely inviting wooden surface of the table and snored the rest of the early morning away.
Notes from wiki and other sources:
* Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation ofquantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung — literally, entanglement.
*Alucard (アーカード Ākādo) is a fictional character and the protagonist in the Hellsing anime and manga series created by Kohta Hirano. A powerful vampire, Alucard works with the Hellsing organization against other vampires and evil forces. He has a range of supernatural techniques including enhanced strength. He fights with ferocity and often extreme cruelty, rarely intending to kill until his target has been disabled and humiliated, while frequently allowing enemies more than one chance to kill him. It is stated in volume 8 of the manga, that he is Count Dracula. Soon after the events in the book, Van Helsing somehow gains control of Dracula, renaming him Alucard and leaves him as a servant of the Hellsing family.
* Otaku (おたく/オタク) is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime manga, and video games.
* About Hellsing:
Vampires are real. And it is the responsibility of Hellsing – an organization hidden from the public eye and funded by the British government – to cover up the frightening reality as well as to protect the blissfully ignorant people from the blood-sucking monsters.
Not only is Hellsing armed with a military force of its own, it possesses secret weapons of which the most powerful is ironically, a vampire. Named Alucard (‘Dracula’ spelt backwards), it is no ordinary blood-sucker, but reigns as the oldest and most powerful vampire in existence, only under the control of Hellsing, led by its young and stern heiress Integra Hellsing
Sadistic, arrogant and extremely powerful, Alucard delights in exterminating its own kind just to prove his superiority. It works with Victoria Seras, a policewoman-turned-fledgling vampire struggling to come to terms with her new identity, along with the enigmatic and lethal butler Walter Donez.
– Nov 9, ’09 4:06 PM
for everyone
|
chitoirigo wrote on Nov 9, ’09, edited on Nov 9, ’09
cuh888 said
Pimples? Lack of sleep? Oh, c’mon Cat. Do Vamps sleep? I mean the sleep of the living? If not, why don’t they have pimples?
|
the pimples part of me resulting from lack of sleep 
|
chitoirigo said
oist! am not a vampire…:-)
|
|
chitoirigo wrote on Nov 9, ’09
cuh888 said
Ok. Could be hormonal then. You know, like you’re on the threshold of puberty 🙂
|
|
*SPOILERS for those who do not know the manga ending*
—- and…IMHO its really cool how Alucard was killed off, finally… but the trick with the character Schrödinger and how he managed to do this to the invincible Alucard ..and how this is related to the above paradox… Schrödinger “carried the will of the self-observing Schrödinger’s Cat” and “as long as he recognizes himself, he’s everywhere and nowhere.” But now that he is consumed by Alucard and is mixed with millions of other minds, he can no longer recognize himself, and by extension neither can Alucard, the one who has absorbed him. Whilst neither are technically dead, they do not exist in any location because they cannot recognize themselves, and have thus become “No more than a set of imaginary numbers.” HOWEVER! Once again. Yet, Alucard manages, in the end after 30 years, to return…and its still pretty cool how thats explained away…hehehe! though other peeps might say it was a bummer on how it all ended…oh well, not all good things last… |
|
chitoirigo said
ok, I can live with that…though I was hoping to skip the side effects…
|
|
and what was most interesting is that I learned something:
Schrödinger’s Cat: A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead. ehehe..parang obvious no? |
|
chitoirigo wrote on Nov 9, ’09
cuh888 said
Well, I was talking of the threshold to the terminal phase of puberty, not of the commencement phase. I thought you were a little mature na for the onset of puberty 🙂
|
|
chitoirigo said
hmm.somehow I don’t know…if I ought to be flattered or insulted …bwahaha!
|
|
My take if one is alive or dead, emphasis on the or, lies on our belief on what death is. In other words: what is the matter? Matter! Conventional wisdom says that when a cat is no longer breathing and is, in fact, decaying, it is already dead. But then the atoms that made up the cat when it was alive has transformed or transferred into other matter. Stinky air, for instance. Amoy ng nabubulok na pusa. The pusa has vanished into thin air. But is it dead? The metaphysical believers will say no. The cat, or the spirit of the cat, is alive and well. And may even inhabit the vessel of a lady watching anime at 4am in the morning.
|
|
cuh888 said
I’d like to complain though on behalf of my cousins around the universe… couldn’t they have used another animal instead? Well, a cat for having nine lives is quite recyclable and therefore economical and environment friendly. Mwahahahaha (sinister laughter)!
|
|
hugzone said
but Sir B…”and” daw..di “or”
|
|
hugzone said
as cats love to sleep, IMHO I don’t think this can be possible for that cat…:-)
if ever there was this cat-possessing-Cat, we’d probably find that particular feline-possessed person curled on the floor and snoozing the day away.. |
|
hugzone said
hmm…I’m glad that not all scientists have resorted to lab cats then..but more on lab mice…
you can stop eating siopao muna and check if its a recyclable cat in its filling 🙂 |
|
And who bests Alucard (before we see the epilogue I mean)?
* SPOILER ALERT* …in case you haven’t seen or known about the Hellsing ending…and don’t want to know about it at this point…do not read further 🙂 —— Junior Warrant Officer Schrödinger (シュレディンガー准尉, Junior Warrant Officer Shuredingā) is a fictional character in the Hellsing manga series by Kouta Hirano. Schrödinger is a catboy (Werwolf would be the military unit he serves in), and was created by Doc. He has the form of a young boy, with cat ears and a perpetual smirk, dressing in a Hitler Youth uniform and holding the rank of Oberstammführer (warrant officer). Usually found sitting underneath the Major’s throne like a pet, he also acts as an envoy for Millennium. Due to his ability to be “everywhere and nowhere” at the same time, he entered the Hellsing mansion without tipping off their defenses to deliver a message; after Integra orders Alucard to shoot him in the head, he later reappeared unscathed back at Millennium’s headquarters.
and this started me on the road of half-asleep-half-awake state…and the resulting blog above…zzzzzz |
|
chitoirigo said
wrong earlier answer…I should have continued on the same vein…
“oist, am not a teenager” |
The Curious Cat 