A story by GF Willmetts. You know how it is. You ponder on a problem for years and then over night you come up with a solution.

It’s all Erwin Schrödinger’s fault really. He wanted to lock a cat in a box with a vial of poison that might open subject to whether a radioactive particle hits the switch or not and the only way you’d know if the cat died was if you opened the box. ‘Course, the observer would have an effect on the situation. Without opening the box, you could live in blissful ignorance as to whether the cat lived or died. If you were optimistic, then the cat lived. If you were pessimistic, then the cat died. You wouldn’t know although the cat might so it becomes a bit of wishful thinking that won’t reach any conclusion until the box is opened and you peeped inside.

Never mind if the cat also suffocated as it used up its precious air supply let alone ate up all its food and drank all its milk. Maybe on its last breath, poison would seem a good option if it knew what was in the box with it and could shake the relay box. It was all hypothetical anyway. Schrödinger never actually tried the experiment out for real. It was all to do with the observer affecting the outcome of any experiment and had to be accounted for in any experiment.

That was all about to change.



I had the solution and could do it for real and get around the problem that the observer wouldn’t interfere with the experiment. My solution was rather straightforward. Make the box transparent. I mean, Schrödinger never said the box couldn’t be transparent, just the presence of human beings might disturb the experiment. So surrounding the box with hidden cameras and in a plain room, there wouldn’t be any distractions and still not altering the basic Schrödinger premise.

Whether the cat would believe it was on its own or was the whole point of the experiment wouldn’t make much difference other than non-interference. The choice of a cat was better than a dog because felines couldn’t be pre-programmed and had minds of their own so that element needn’t be changed. How many cats do you know who would cry out for their master? All right, a few, but not nearly as many dogs, though. They also wouldn’t wag their tales against the box side and mess up the mechanism. No wonder Schrödinger chose a cat for his example.

So, everything was set up. The cat was put in the box with the poison waiting to open. As there was no way of knowing how long it would take for a radioactive particle to hit a relay, a concern for the cat’s air supply and food, not to mention a team of us spending years watching, we opted for a random number generator to control the relay. This didn’t contradict Schrödinger as events would still be a random but in a shorter time span.

We watched from afar through the camera lenses for something to happen, ready to watch in shifts if we had to. Half of us nearly agreed with me that the cat would suffocate before the poison capsule left.

We watched.

We waited.

We watched some more.

No one took their eyes off the cameras even if it was going to record automatically.

Then there was the signal. The relay had been hit. A lucky number for us but how about the cat?

The capsule had opened.

The cat was obviously doomed. The choice taken from it. We observers hadn’t interfered with the experiment.

We were about to watch history. Would some quantum event occur that would save the cat?

Except the cat wasn’t there. Had we blinked?

Had the cat discovered the solution to Schrödinger’s dilemma?

It appeared that way.

Rather than die, the cat had learnt how to teleport.

Unlike Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, it didn’t even leave a smile.

Gone in an instant.

We were left with an empty box with poison killing nothing.

Fancy that.

With a bit of a search, we eventually found the cat, curled up in the last place that we thought to check. His own box. Not the closed one we left it locked up in but his own open box with his own blanket and mouse toy, oblivious to the fuss that it had teleported to safety. It yawned contentedly at us, wondering what the fuss was about. Not a care in the world.

We went over the footage watching the box with the cat in it but none of us could spot the exact second when the cat vanished against the vial being opened. It could have been a fluke but the cat was now the most precious animal in the world. We couldn’t risk harming the cat again by replacing it back in the box but we needed to find out how it did it. We did a, ahem, CAT scan to see if it was different to any other cat but nothing significant showed itself. Some bright spark scribbled on the notes, ‘Act of God.’

This became part of the debate. If we hadn’t caused the cat to teleport, just presented the situation, was some other agency involved? The debate quickly moved to whether we should repeat the experiment with another cat but what would it prove? I mean, if the cat teleported, all it meant was that in a similar situation, all cats were potential teleporters. Try it with another animal and it didn’t teleport then all it mean was only cats were potential teleporters or just dead cats.

If it teleported, then all animals in a similar situation would teleport. This was a problem as complex as Schrödinger’s box in the first place. Was something akin to God looking in and taking amusement from the puzzle we had presented ourselves and had a kindness to cats? Was God the teleporter not the cat? Was quantum anomalies an act of God. Was there any science in this at all?

Another of our bright sparks said it was akin to a situation some Science Fiction author called Bester something or other getting there first by subjecting humans to being slammed in a hydraulic press and finding teleporters by those who got away. Not very fortunate for those who didn’t, though. Crushing, in fact. There’d been enough paperwork to cover our using a cat in the first place. I doubt if Animal Rights would turn a blind eye a second time if they discovered the experiment. They might even think we cheated and had two cats.

It took a lot more pondering on this. We could do endless tests with cats or any other animal to see if it teleported to safety but not knowing if it was the animal or something else happening. Likewise, we could be pushing luck to try out the test too much. If we were looking for statistical probability it still wouldn’t tell us very much.

At the end of the day, there was no other choice. Only a human observer could really learn anything that could be reported on. If any animal could teleport in such situations and Man was an animal then he would teleport as well. All our previous subject could tell us was a good purr came from some petting and a decent meal.

The legal aspects had to be resolved. Whoever sat in an enlarged Schrödinger’s box with the poison and it went off might die and those watching would be accessory to murder if they did nothing. That would really close the project down and no one would ever be the wiser again. If there was a God or other such sentient deity watching, maybe that was the whole point of teleporting the cat to safety, to get the last laugh as one of us died in its place. A reminder not to emulate him/it/her if you like. To leave us in a situation pretty much like what Schrödinger had and another century of pondering to work out what had happened. We were this close to success and still no wiser.

In the end, I came up with a solution but couldn’t tell the rest of the team. To do so would make them accessories and really, they weren’t needed. After all, the cameras were automatic. The release of the poison was automatic and unpredictable. Indeed, once inside the box and the random number generator set, whoever was inside was going to be trapped unless there was some greater action taking place and the subject, meaning me this time, was teleported to safety. Or not. Then the rest of the team would then realise that the experiment was a failure and back to the drawing boards for another generation to come up with a better take. If nothing else, they would have an answer of sorts to dwell on than pure speculation.

After the cat teleporting, the number of surveillance cameras in the facility had quadrupled. Not so much for our own protection but just in case the cat teleported again so we could see where it appeared next. If I did teleport a short distance, then something would be tracked. I could also describe the experience without a need for a saucer of milk.

With everyone off for the weekend, I chose Saturday night to carry out the experiment once again. With Friday night, there was always the likelihood someone would come back forgetting something. By Saturday, everyone would be relaxed and not wanting to think about anything but time with their family. On Sunday, a cleaner might spot something.

I crawled into the box and listened as the locking mechanism sealed me in. The transparency of the box enabled me to watch the lock function and with nothing to set it free. If no one came in until Monday first thing, the most they would find is me stuck in the box, suffocated through lack of air. Except, there was also the vial of poison which might or might not open in the mean time. I could even be dead. Or not.

It was the waiting that was going to be the hard part. That and never knowing when the poison vial might or might not open. Would I meet God? Would I know what it was if it introduced itself? I wasn’t a believer so didn’t believe that was a requisite. After all, I doubt if the cat believed in God.

All I could do was wait.

Wait.

Wait or poison.

When did the cat decide to teleport... or not?


End or Not End?

(c) GF Willmetts 2010
all rights reserved