http://news.nationalgeographic.

com/news/2013/08/130812-physicsschrodinger-erwin-google-doodle-cat-paradox-science/
The Nobel prize-winning physicist would have turned 126 years old on Monday
and to celebrate, Google honored his birth with a cat-themed Doodle, which pays
tribute to the paradox Schrdinger proposed in 1935 in the following theoretical
experiment.
A cat is placed in a steel box along with a Geiger counter, a vial of poison, a
hammer, and a radioactive substance. When the radioactive substance decays,
the Geiger detects it and triggers the hammer to release the poison, which
subsequently kills the cat. The radioactive decay is a random process, and there
is no way to predict when it will happen. Physicists say the atom exists in a state
known as a superpositionboth decayed and not decayed at the same time.
Until the box is opened, an observer doesn't know whether the cat is alive or
deadbecause the cat's fate is intrinsically tied to whether or not the atom has
decayed and the cat would, as Schrdinger put it, be "living and dead ... in equal
parts" until it is observed.
In other words, until the box was opened, the cat's state is completely unknown
and therefore, the cat is considered to be both alive and dead at the same time
until it is observed.
"If you put the cat in the box, and if there's no way of saying what the cat is
doing, you have to treat it as if it's doing all of the possible thingsbeing living
and deadat the same time," explains Eric Martell, an associate professor of
physics and astronomy at Millikin University. "If you try to make predictions and
you assume you know the status of the cat, you're [probably] going to be wrong.
If, on the other hand, you assume it's in a combination of all of the possible states
that it can be, you'll be correct."
Immediately upon looking at the cat, an observer would immediately know if the
cat was alive or dead and the "superposition" of the catthe idea that it was in
both stateswould collapse into either the knowledge that "the cat is alive" or
"the cat is dead," but not both.
Schrdinger developed the paradox, says Martell, to illustrate a point in quantum
mechanics about the nature of wave particles.
"What we discovered in the late 1800s and early 1900s is that really, really tiny
things didn't obey Newton's Laws," he says. "So the rules that we used to govern
the motion of a ball or person or car couldn't be used to explain how an electron
or atom works."

At the very heart of quantum theorywhich is used to describe how subatomic

particles like electrons and protons behaveis the idea of a wave function. A
wave function describes all of the possible states that such particles can have,
including properties like energy, momentum, and position.
"The wave function is a combination of all of the possible wave functions that
exist," says Martell. "A wave function for a particle says there's some probability
that it can be in any allowed position. But you can't necessarily say you know that
it's in a particular position without observing it. If you put an electron around the
nucleus, it can have any of the allowed states or positions, unless we look at it
and know where it is."
That's what Schrdinger was illustrating with the cat paradox, he says.
"In any physical system, without observation, you cannot say what something is
doing," says Martell. "You have to say it can be any of these things it can be
doingeven if the probability is small."
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec13.html

thetwoslitexperimentiskeytounderstandthemicroscopicworld

waves can interfere, for light this will make a series of light and dark bands

matter particles, such as electrons, also produce interference patterns due to their wave-like n

so with a high flux of either photons or electrons, the characteristic interference pattern is vis

ifwelowertheintensityoflight,orthefluxofelectrons(theelectriccurrent),weshouldbeabletoseeeachphoton

eachphotonmakesadotonthescreen,butwhereistheinterferencepattern?

theinterferencepatternisstillthere,itsimplytakessometimeforenoughphotons,orelectrons,tostrikethescree

interference,orawavephenomenon,isstilloccurringevenifweonlyletthephotons,orelectrons,throughoneata

sowhataretheindividualparticlesinterferingwith?apparently,themselves

inorderforaparticletointerferewithitself,itmustpassthroughbothslits

thisforcesustogiveupthecommonsensenotionoflocation

Role of the Observer:

sincethequantumworldcannotbeobserveddirectly,weareforcedtouseinstrumentsasextensionsofoursenses

however,quantumentitiesaresosmallthatevencontactwithonephotonchangestheirpositionandmomentum=

1sthintthattheobserverisanimportantpieceofanyquantumexperiment,cannotisolatetheobserverortheiref

thetwoslitexperimentisagoodtestoftheroleoftheobserverinthequantumrealm

anyexperimentaldesignthatattemptstodeterminewhichslitaphotonhaspassedthrough(testforitsparticlenat

thisisabreakdownofobjectivereality

eachquantumentityhasdualpotentialproperties,whichbecomeanactualcharacteristicifandwhenitisobserved

Quantum Wave Function:

awavepacketinterpretationforparticlesmeansthereisanintrinsicfuzzinessassigntothem

thewavefunctionisthemathematicaltooltodescribequantumentities

wavefunctionexpresslikelihood*until*ameasurementismade

Superposition:

quantumphysicsisascienceofpossibilitiesratherthanexactnessofNewtonianphysics

quantumobjectsandquantitiesbecomesactualwhenobserved

keyproofofquantumsuperpositionsisthephenomenonofquantumtunneling

thepositionoftheelectron,thewavefunction,istrulyspreadout,notuncertain

observationcausesthewavefunctiontocollapsetoanactual

quantum
existenceistiedto
theenvironment,
oppositetothe
independenceof
macroscopic
objects

Thecollapseofthewavefunctionbyobservationisatransitionfrom
themanytotheone,frompossibilitytoactuality.Theidentityand
existenceofaquantumentitiesareboundupwithitsoverall
environment(thisiscalledcontextualism).Likehomonyms,wordsthat
dependonthecontextinwhichtheyareused,quantumrealityshiftsits
natureaccordingtoitssurroundings.
Inthemacroscopicworldruledbyclassicalphysics,thingsarewhat
theyare.Inthemicroscopicworldruledbyquantumphysics,thereis
anexistentialdialogueamongtheparticle,itssurroundingsandthe
personstudyingit.

http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/stanford-prisonexperiment.htm
In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set out to
create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner
or prison guard. Zimbardo, a former classmate of Stanley Milgram (who

is best-known for his famousobedience experiment, was interested in

expanding upon Milgram's research. He wanted to further investigate
the the impact of situational variables on human behavior.
The question the researchers asked was how would the participants
react when placed in a simulated prison environment. "Suppose you
had only kids who were normally healthy, psychologically and
physically, and they knew they would be going into a prison-like
environment and that some of their civil rights would be sacrificed.
Would those good people, put in that bad, evil placewould their
goodness triumph?" Zimbardo explained in one interview.
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The Participants
The researchers set up a mock prison in the basement of Standford
University's psychology building, and then selected 24 undergraduate
students to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. The
participants were selected from a larger group of 70 volunteers
because they had no criminal background, lacked psychological issues,
and had no major medical conditions. The volunteers agreed to
participate for a one- to two-week period in exchange for $15 a day.

The Setting and Procedures

The simulated prison included three six by nine foot prison cells. Each
cell held three prisoners and included three cots. Other rooms across
from the cells were utilized for the prison guards and warden. One very
small space was designated as the solitary confinement room, and yet
another small room served as the prison yard.
The 24 volunteers were then randomly assigned to either the prisoner
group or the guard group. Prisoners were to remain in the mock prison
24-hours a day for the duration of the study. Guards, on the other
hand, were assigned to work in three-man teams for eight-hour shifts.
After each shift, guards were allowed to return to their homes until
their next shift. Researchers were able to observe the behavior of the
prisoners and guards using hidden cameras and microphones.

Results of the Stanford Prison Experiment

While the Stanford Prison Experiment was originally slated to last 14
days, it had to be stopped after just six due to what was happening to
the student participants. The guards became abusive and the prisoners
began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety.
While the prisoners and guards were allowed to interact in any way
they wanted, the interactions were generally hostile or even
dehumanizing. The guards began to behave in ways that were
aggressive and abusive toward the prisoners, while the prisoners
became passive and depressed. Five of the prisoners began to
experience such severe negative emotions, including crying and acute
anxiety, that they had to be released from the study early.
Even the researchers themselves began to lose sight of the reality of
the situation. Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked
the abusive behavior of the prison guards until graduate student
Christina Maslach voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated
prison and the morality of continuing the experiment.
"Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to
yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of
morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class,"
Zimbardo later wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect.

What Do the Results of the Stanford Prison

Experiment Mean?
According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison
Experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play
in human behavior. Because the guards were placed in a position of
power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in
their everyday lives or in other situations. The prisoners, placed in a
situation where they had no real control, became passive and
depressed.

Criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment is frequently cited as an example of

unethical research. The experiment could not be replicated by
researchers today because it fails to meet the standards established by
numerous ethical codes, including the Ethics Code of theAmerican
Psychological Association. Zimbardo acknowledges the ethical
problems with the study, suggesting that "although we ended the
study a week earlier than planned, we did not end it soon enough."
Other critics suggest that the study lacks generalizability due to a
variety of factors. Theunrepresentative sample of participants (mostly
white and middle class males) makes it difficult to apply the results to
a wider population.
The study is also criticized for its lack of ecological validity. While the
researchers did their best to recreate a prison setting, it is simply not
possible to perfectly mimic all of the environmental and situational
variables of prison life.
Despite some of the criticism, the Stanford Prison Experiment remains
an important study in our understanding of how the situation can
influence human behavior. The study recently garnered attention after
reports of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in Iraq became known. Many
people, including Zimbardo himself, suggest that the abuses at Abu
Ghraib might be real-world examples of the same results observed in
Zimbardo's experiment.