| | |  | This is the Conversation Forum for 'The Glass Is Half Full' - Good or Bad? << Another Possibility... the real questions... >> |  |

|  |
 |  |  | Subject: Quantum water glasses? Posted Feb 18, 2004 by Researcher Squangos This is a reply to this Posting
|  | Posting
8
  |  | To quote turvy:
If you know where the glass is you can't know it's state though!
Maybe that's why people can't find their drinks! Sure, you may say that someone else took it, prehaps the barman. But when you know it's only got a sip left, at most, to have quantum mechanics step in… Well, it makes sense… Right?
To quote you again, turvy:
If the drinker is in a sealed container with two glasses - one half full and one half empty - and is about to take a drink, then the external observer event is deteministic in that it forces the infinity of probabilities to take but one path.
…How many glasses did you make full-empty to think that up? IT'S RIDICULOUS! For starters, you need to pour these drinks. How do you NOT observe the ammount poured? What are the chances you fill a glass halfway without looking? Also, you're assuming the contents of both glasses is the same. What if it isn't? What if you have a half-full glass of water and a half-empty glass of, say, cool, refreshing beer. Then you're just observing common sense. You can't know what's in those glasses, because that's observing, and that screws up the experiment! And infinity of probabilities? Glass 1 or glass 2? Not much of an infinity…
|
 |  |  | Subject: Quantum water glasses? Posted Mar 4, 2004 by Researcher Squangos This is a reply to this Posting
|  | Posting
14
  |  | Do you need a pair of scissors? Actually, I was thinking about combining the half full/half empty problem with The Infamous Schrodinger's Cat (I believe you'll agree it deserves the capital letters. I also believe that no cat should be forced to undergo such treatment. There's a long list of people I don't like much, however... . Bwah ha, and a HA! on top of that. Death-life superposition is too good for them... Anyway, there was a point somewhere... Ah!). Suppose you take the cat and the box, chuck the all the rest (Radioactive atom, Geiger counter, poison dispencer), remove the cat, put in one of the people on the list, and two glasses at 50% capacity. One is poisoned. The glasses are mixed around. The person cannot possibly know which glass is poisoned. He is forced to choose on of the glasses (Maybe he's poisoned, and the other glass (The non-poisoned one) contains the antidote. I don't really care. As long as he suffers. Don't know why it's a he, exactly. Women don't bother with me, I suppose . Anyway.). Before he drinks, he writes on the back of an envelope (I don't know how it got there. But whenever there is drinking, there's the back of an envelope to write stuff down on. It's probably another quantum phenomenon, which could get rid of that "Snail Mail" comment. And increase the number of drinking establishments, which is no bad thing. Anyway.) if he thinks one of the glasses is half full or half empty (Could be the glass he drank from or the other one, you can't tell.). Now not only is he in a life/death superposition, what's written on the back of the envelope is in a half-full/half-empty superposition and both glasses are in drunk/not drunk superpositions. While all this is going on, you can pretend you're Blofeld and be stroking the cat. And laughing. Moron. "Let's have a friendly drink", you said. AND HE FELL FOR IT! BWAH HA, and a HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! on top. Then you open the box and shoot him.
|

|  |
|
| 
   
 
Conversation list
Most of the content on h2g2 is created by h2g2's Researchers, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced. In the event that you consider anything on this page to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please click on the relevant button to alert our Moderation Team. |