Ursula K. Le Guin, "Schrödinger’s Cat"
1. The title of this short story refers to a famous thought experiment proposed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. A cat is put into an opaque box along with a container of poison gas, which is rigged so that it can be released by the radioactive decay of an atom, which might or might not occur. A moment later, the question arises: is the cat alive or dead? According to the laws of classical physics (and common sense), the cat must be either alive or dead inside the box. According to the laws of quantum physics, the cat will remain in a state of possibility (of being alive or dead) that will not be decided until the box is actually opened, that is, until the cat is observed. This is paradoxical because the cat must be either alive or dead (one could always perform an autopsy on the cat and determine the moment of its death). One of the solutions to this paradox, the "many worlds interpretation," suggests that two worlds coexist: in one the cat is alive, in the other the cat is dead. In opening the box, we find ourselves in one world or another. (In the Le Guin story, Rover replaces the poison with a gun.)
How can Le Guin’s short story itself be understood as a thought experiment? With what aspects of classical and quantum physics does it engage?
2. What might the narrator mean by the statement that "really we could use larger boxes"?
3. At the end of the story, the narrator wonders if the cat "found what it was we lost." What was lost, and when?
- "She Unnames Them"