DID Erwin Schr枚dinger, inventor of the cat-in-the-box thought
experiment, actually have a cat, and if so what was its name? Michael Coles
posed this intriguing question here on 24 January. Many readers have offered
their answers.
Schr枚dinger neither had a cat nor didn鈥檛 have one, Ian Cowley suggests.
Until he was asked if he had one, he had an indeterminate cat. Once he was
asked, the waveform collapsed, and then he either had a cat or he didn鈥檛 have
one.
On the other hand, S. B. Taylor feels that Schr枚dinger both did and did
not have a cat, and that it was called by all possible names and no name at
all.
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But then again, Bob Clark believes that he owned two cats. One was called
Lucky. The other one wasn鈥檛.
Anne Gray, however, thinks that the cat was called Hamlet (鈥淭o be or not to
be, that is the question鈥�), while, on similar lines, Barry Jackson thinks it was
called Toby or not Toby.
Several other readers are sure that the cat was called either Cheshire Cat
(鈥渃uriouser and curiouser鈥�) or Macavity (鈥渨henever a crime鈥檚 committed,
Macavity鈥檚 never there鈥�).
Enigma, Cat-22, Jack (famous for being in the box) and Ninthly were also
suggested.
Laurence Norah, however, points out that not only did Schr枚dinger鈥檚 cat
definitely exist, but it achieved literary fame in Douglas Adams鈥檚 Dirk
Gently鈥檚 Holistic Detective Agency. According to this story, the cat was
called Bernice. Dirk Gently became involved when the cat, tired of being put in
and out of the box all day, simply vanished. This puzzled many scientists, who
believed the cat should either be dead or alive, instead of merely gone.
However, with the cunning positioning of a bowl of milk, and the calling of the
name Bernice, the cat was induced to reappear.
Rein Peters, meanwhile, describes a Dutch children鈥檚 book De verbroken
cirkel (The broken circle) in which the cat is called Quantum because
Schr枚dinger never knows where his pet is or what it is doing. In this
story, too, the cat flees from Schr枚dinger鈥檚 house after overhearing the
scientist tell a friend that he plans to test his thought experiment in reality.
The cat, on the run with a girl called Lianne, meets up with various characters
who talk about possibility and reality, cause and coincidence, and other
fascinating topics.
So it seems that whether or not Schr枚dinger鈥檚 cat existed, and whatever
its name was, its life (or nonlife) was never dull.
PERHAPS our spoof warnings last week about musical viruses weren鈥檛 spoofs
after all. A virus is reported to have hit computer screens in Spain which
throws up the first two verses of Elton John鈥檚 reworking of Candle in the
Wind on screen. According to Fernando de la Cuadra, an antivirus adviser
with the Madrid offices of Panda Software, the virus is spread by e-mail,
presumably in the form of a macro hidden in an attached Word file. It was first
detected a week ago in Bilbao on the country鈥檚 north coast.
鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the world鈥檚 few nice viruses in as much as it doesn鈥檛 break or
destroy anything,鈥� says de la Cuadra鈥攖hough this, of course, could depend
on how many times you can bear reading the words of John鈥檚 tribute to Princess
Diana without resorting to violence.
THE UNEXPECTED appearance of a bird from foreign shores sends birdwatchers
grabbing their binoculars and rushing for the door. But is the bird in question
truly wild or merely an escapee from a collection?
Such a debate recently took place on a birdwatcher鈥檚 Internet mailing list
ukbirdnet@dcs.bbk.ac.uk, when a bufflehead (a kind of North American
duck) was spotted in Suffolk. No local collections owned up to any escapes and
so the bird was thought to be wild.
Just when the debate was dying down, one contributor to the group went on a
guided walk at Pensthorpe, a wildfowl collection not far away in Fakenham,
Norfolk. The subject of escapes was raised but quickly shrugged off by the
guide.
Then, to everyone鈥檚 surprise, three rare ducks suddenly took to the wing and
disappeared into the sunset. 鈥淗ey, they shouldn鈥檛 be able to fly,鈥� exclaimed the
embarrassed guide. The debate continues.
RONALD SMITH, one of our Christmas competition winners, has discovered that
gin travels well. The bottle he won as his prize finally turned up at his home
in Perth, Scotland, after being flown all the way to Perth, Western Australia,
by mistake. 鈥淭ry Scotland, not Aussie,鈥� someone had written on the box at the
post office in down-under Perth, whereupon the gin set off on its travels
again.
Smith was asked to pay 拢14.62 for the peripatetic gin鈥檚 safe
arrival鈥攂ut the main point, he says, is that the gin seemed to be none the
worse for having flown halfway round the globe and back. A good thing it wasn鈥檛
a bottle of vintage wine.
AND finally, yet more daft manufacturer鈥檚 instructions. J. Hutchins recently
received a bottle of Boots Sport shower gel, on the front of which was a sticker
saying 鈥淭his is not a drink鈥�. Hutchins was grateful for the warning. On the
strength of it, he has also decided not to eat his soap.
MEANWHILE Rhodri Powell noticed that written on the plastic screw top of a
bottle of Sainsbury鈥檚 cider are the words 鈥淥pen by hand鈥�.
Powell wonders how else you could possibly open such a top, and with what
instrument. So does Feedback. Is the warning there because our hospitals are
full of people who have attempted to open these bottles by other methods, such
as flame-throwers or Semtex?