Shrodinger's Kerbal

[Rage097]

Yes. we are playing with quantum entanglement in KSP.

We put a Kerbal in a box with say, a command chair, we have him get out of the chair. Now we find a scenario with a 50/50 chance of Kerbal fatality which we can put the box through, the box cannot be opened. Now we have a Kerbal that's both dead and alive.

If someone can do this you will get a cookie.

[Spyritdragon]

Put the Kerbal on his chair in a box. The box contains him on the chair, two spaces for a Kerbal on opposite sides of the chair, one of which has an engine pointing at it. Attach remote control, docking port and SAS to the box, have him get up and tumble the box around randomly for a while. Now lock the box to a dock that will prevent further rotation, or make sure you have a second engine cancelling the torque from the one inside, and fire up the engine. Keep it on long enough to kill a Kerbal in front of it. 50-50 chance of survival, no way to know :-)

[Lohan2008]

The scenario (also) needs to state that we can not observe the Kerbal inside the box.

2> state that the box is sealed and contains a toxic substance that will break within a random amount of time.

Correction: Now we have a Kerbal that's both dead and alive {but not at the same time}

Answer: it only "becomes" a Quantum state once we observe the living or dead Kerbal.

The "dead" Kerbal cannot interact with the "alive" Kerbal within the same space..

It is a paradox with no correct answer.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Lohan2008

[Constans]

I'm not totally familiar with all the details of the game engine, but aren't the active Kerbals always on camera in the bottom right of the screen? That means that they are always being observed (unless you don't look at the screen of course, but that makes it hard to play the game!), so the probability wave will always be collapsed:

|state of kerbal> = (0.5)^0.5|kerbal alive> + 0.5^0.5|kerbal dead> is the unobserved Shrodinger Equation describing the situation if left unobserved, but if it is observed the whole time it will simply be |kerbal alive> and either become |kerbal dead> or stay |kerbal alive>.

Things to do while waiting for 0.22:

1. Post on font thread - check!

2. Post on quantum mechanics of Kerbals thread - check!

3. Get back to work! - check!

[Constans]

Ninja'd (a bit at least ... hmmm, needs to be a Kerbal ninja icon. 4. Design Kerbal ninja icon).

[SteevyT]

But the computer is observing the Kerbal so it knows what to write in the save file, so it is either dead or alive.

[paleorob]

But the computer is observing the Kerbal so it knows what to write in the save file, so it is either dead or alive.

Which is the point of the thought experiment in the first place - to point out the absurdity of applying quantum mechanics to everyday scenarios.

[Tw1]

But the computer is observing the Kerbal so it knows what to write in the save file, so it is either dead or alive.

But we don't! Doesn't that matter? I reckon make the box out of large structural panels, put the kebal in the box using a chair, decouple a load of girder parts, and roll the box around. As long as you don't switch to him, or hit F4, or visit the tracking station, etc, he could be dead or alive, and we won't know.