Excerpt #2:

HOW SCHROEDINGER GOT HIS NAME

While driving home from the Humane Society, I tried to think of a good name for my new cat. Moishe sounded too much like Morris and Morris was an orange cat. Whitey wasn’t a bad name, but my cat wasn’t all white, though he was alright. I thought of many other names while I drove, but none of them caught my fancy.

I like to read about Physics, the study of how the Universe works. Quantum Mechanics is a branch of Physics that deals with things that are very small. No, that’s not small enough. When I say very small, I really mean very, very, very, very, very, very, very small. As you know, materials or things like water or steel or concrete or you and I are made up of small particles called molecules and molecules are made up of atoms. They are so small that you can’t even see them with your eyes. You need big machines called electron microscopes to see them. Some things are made up of only one kind of atom like diamonds or copper. Other things are made up of many different kinds of atoms. Each water molecule, for example, is made up of two Hydrogen and one Oxygen atoms. That’s why the chemical symbol for water is H2O. Be patient with me please, I don’t like to tell a story too quickly (that means I’m long winded). Now atoms are made up of smaller things called electrons, protons and neutrons. Guess what? There are even smaller quantum particles called quarks that make up the protons and neutrons. These are extremely small, indeed. Erwin Schroedinger was a famous Austrian physicist who worked in the field of Quantum Mechanics. He lived from 1887 to 1961, a long time ago, and won the Nobel Prize.

Schroedinger, the physicist, used an example of a cat in a box to illustrate some concepts of Quantum Mechanics and his famous wave equation, known as the Schroedinger Wave Equation; what else? The example, and the cat, also became famous and were collectively known as Schroedinger’s cat. A man named John Gribben wrote two books about this. The first, “In Search of Schroedinger’s Cat”, was about quantum reality. The other was “Schroedinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality”.

Notice the word “reality” in the description of the two books. What is reality? Do you really know what is real and what is not? Is reality always the same for you? Is it the same for you and others? When we see water with our eyes, we all generally see the same thing. We all agree it is wet, good for washing, bathing and showering, and fun to splash and swim in or take a boat ride on. If we look at water with an electron microscope we see only water molecules. If we could use a more powerful microscope we would see clumps of two Hydrogen and one Oxygen atoms. An even more powerful microscope, if it existed, would reveal clumps of neutrons and protons with electrons whirling around them. One more time and we would see clumps of quarks. So five different people could look at water in five different ways and all see different things; yet they’re all looking at what we call water. So I ask you again, what is reality? What is the universe?  Maybe one answer to this question is that the universe is quark soup.

I’m sure the example of Schroedinger’s Cat has been discussed in many other books also. The subject is so complicated that I won’t even attempt to explain it to you; aren’t you lucky! Of course, there might be some readers who say, “He won’t explain it because he doesn’t understand it” and, who knows, they might be right. Well, the point of this digression was to explain how Schroedinger, the man, made a cat famous. It occurred to me that a cat could return the favor and that’s how I came to name my cat, Schroedinger, “Schroedinger”.

After living together for over two years, I was even happier with the name I chose for Schroedinger. It’s a good name and allows for many variations all of which he recognizes. Here they are in no special order; Schroedie, Schroedeleh, Schroedster, Schroed, Schroedman, Schroedsky, Schroedmeister and Schro. Of course, I always use his full name, Schroedinger J. Cat Jr. III, when I’m angry with him or when I’m talking seriously to him. In addition to these variations of his name, he also responds to Pal, Buddy, Old Friend, Old Boy, Hey You, and so forth. He’s a very smart cat.

Another advantage to the name, Schroedinger, is that it’s somewhat strange and people always ask about it and I have to explain and have some nice conversations with them. Every so often I encounter someone who actually knows about Schroedinger and that leads to even nicer conversations. Nice conversations are a way of connecting with others and, yes you are right, I like to talk.