Schrödinger's Letterbox LbNA #36019

There are different ways of reaching Pulpit Rock from the parking lot on Reservoir Road, each with its advantages and disadvantages. For example, the dirt road up to the observatory (no vehicles - sorry) is somewhat more direct, but with that shorter distance comes some added steepness. Now, however, there is another reason to take the dirt road.

In 1935 Erwin Schrödinger proposed a famous thought experiment in which a cat was somehow both alive and dead at the same time.

"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical 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 one 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 which 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 first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The Psi function for the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the 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. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a ``blurred model'' for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks."

In his original thought experiment, Schrödinger imagined that a cat is locked in a box, along with a radioactive atom that is connected to a vial containing a deadly poison. If the atom decays, it causes the vial to smash and the cat to be killed. When the box is closed we do not know if the atom has decayed or not, which means that it can be in both the decayed state and the non-decayed state at the same time. Therefore, the cat is both dead and alive at the same time - which classical physics says should not happen.

Schrödinger was attempting to demonstrate the limitations of quantum mechanics: quantum particles such as atoms can be in two or more different quantum states at the same time but surely, he argued, a classical object made of a large number of atoms, such as a cat, could not be in two different states.

To conduct your own experiment, park in the lot on Windsor road and walk around the bar and up the hill, following the blue blazes. When you reach an open grassy area, follow the road to the right over a small bridge. At this point, you can follow the foot path to the right (marked by blue blazes and a "No Fires No Camping" sign) and take the AT to the summit. You will have many grand adventures but will go nowhere near this letterbox. If you want to find this letterbox, follow the road around to the left. Within a few hundred yards, take a red shale road to the right. The road bends to the left and becomes steep very quickly. You will go around a very sharp switchback to the right, then the road turns to the left again. Eventually you will see a large stone slab to your right that looks as though it is resting on a tree that has grown up next to it, much like a deadfall trap. (If you see 50325 or 46426, you have gone too far.) To the left of the tree, the stone looks something like the face of a cat. To the right of the tree, the stone looks like, well, nothing much, really. Across the road is a drainage cut. Follow it down to where a tree has fallen across to make a nice bench. To your right is a large flat boulder. Schrödinger's Letterbox is underneath the boulder on the other side hidden by dead wood.

Please reseal and rehide carefully.

Wear blaze orange. If you go during hunting season, go on Sunday.