Wednesday 26 March 2008

A Case Of The Schrodingers

Last night i was awoken by a cat that i was convinced i had put outside - a cat that isn't even mine...and this got me thinking...

A recent survey of cat owners suggested that there are four times more cat owners than there are cats: it also stated that only approximately 25% of cats were purchased by their current owner, whilst the remaining 75% had just spontaneously arrived.

Clearly something strange is going on here, and those who have studied any science at all and are aware of the theoretical experiments of Schrodinger may already suspect why.

Schrodinger, in an attempt to explain Quantum Physics, postulated that if you stick a cat in a box with a radioactive isotope and a bottle of poison and close the lid then the cat now exists only in a state of quantum flux – it could have died from radiation exposure, it could have died from the poison or it could be sitting there, really annoyed and waiting to sink its claws into the laboratory technician.

The point of the experiment is that we don’t know what is happening until we open the box and that the very act of observing something changes it. Clearly Schrodinger never meant for his experiment to be actually carried out, but one suspects that if it ever were then the box would be opened to find no cat there. After a hurried search of the office it would then be found under the table with a nice saucer of milk.

This is because all cats contain 5% Schrodinger and 15% Houdini in their DNA. How else can you explain the fact that each evening you throw them out – on occasions physically padlocking them in the shed – only to find them at the foot of your bed in the morning?

Cats are perfectly able to communicate with, and control, humans – though they prefer to stick to the simple things we can understand. Like reminding us where the fridge is, stopping us from inventing time travel by sitting in front of the computer screen at vital moments and generally using our laps as somewhere warm and comfy to fall asleep.

Some Cats have worked out that they can get fed when it suits them by sitting on human chests when we are trying to sleep, whilst others are apparently too lazy or stupid to saunter through to the kitchen and find that, in fact, food had been laid out on their behalf in the first place.

The ancient Egyptians worshipped cats – so it must be a bit of a come-down for the modern moggie, having to squeeze through a cat flap and into suburban life.

To get our own back on cats monopolising our time humans have devised a bizarre method of feeding the animals – you can get beef flavoured cat food and pork flavoured cat-food, but realistically when in the wild would your cat chase and kill a cow for sustenance?

Why can’t you buy mouse flavoured cat-food? Or frog? Or small bird cat-food?

Meanwhile the cat that has secretly adopted me and my home is probably sitting on the sofa right now, having a good old-fashioned sleep

6 comments:

A. Stageman said...

It's true. Cats are very sneaky. And very manipulative...with their loud obnoxious meowings and their purring power and their power to be really cute whenever a human is angry with them.

I think cats are trying to take over the world.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm. I don't know. Are you sure Schrodinger never meant for the experiment to be carried out, or was he quieted by private socio-mechanical authorities?

5% Schrodinger and 15% Houdini? How did the cats obtain these DNA strands? They, by nature (Kant defines nature as the set of maxims that determining one's will) sit in front of the computer screen to stop us from time travel, because if we travel back through time we will figure out how they got these powers, and it will probably be through some thoroughly controversial methods.

But then again, the quantum flux experiment empirically proves that, as soon as observation takes place, a new element is introduced into the situation, which changes it entirely. Perhaps this very thing will happen when we go back in time to investigate the DNA strands. So, in theory, we'll never actually know.

The Disturbed One said...

*quietly listens to conversation and pets lil mama*

:)

Anonymous said...

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if he defines that way: it could that or the ultimate subjective ground which determines the adoption of those maxims.

Suburbia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Suburbia said...

Sort of sums up the cat thing.