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If
the material does
break down, it will
release a particle,
hitting
the
Geiger
counter and releasing
poison gas; this would
obviously kill the cat.
After one hour, the
question that confronts
the experimenter is
this: at the end of the hour, is the cat alive or dead? The only way
to know would be to open the door and make an observation,
which would interfere with the experiment. Therefore, the cat
can be thought of as both dead and alive.
The Schrödinger Thought Experiment, while potentially
doing some harm to a few unlucky felines, also serves as a prime
example of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, otherwise
known as the Uncertainty Principle. The uncertainty principle
states that no single object has a definite position, trajectory, or
momentum. The more one tries to pinpoint an object’s definite
position, the less possible it is to pinpoint its momentum, and
vice versa. These uncertainties are near-undetectable in the
macroscopic (the larger system) world, but when applied to the
microscopic (smaller system) world, these disparities become
more clear. If you decided to track an electron, the uncertainty
principle assures two things: one, the electron did not have a
definite position before you located it, and two, the electron did
not have a definite momentum until you measured its trajectory.
In short, observation changes the outcome. Sounds familiar? The
Uncertainty Principle is applied to the macroscopic world in
Schrödinger’s Thought Experiment, as it proves that an object
assumes different values simultaneously until it is observed.
The Application
What does all this theoretical gobbledy-gook have to do
with the Personal Reality? Let’s tie it together.
With regards to the Uncertainty Principle, the Power
Curriculum program enables students to individually select a
so called “Personal Reality.” This Personal Reality is possible
because the program allows students to ignore the Uncertainty
Principle. What this means is that the student, instead of having
to comply with the uncertain values that objects have, are
instead allowed to personally dictate these values. Basically,
the student has control over the microscopic observations of the
world, and chooses, among the infinite number of possibilities,
the one possibility they desire. To put it in terms of Schrödinger’s
experiment, observation would no longer determine if the cat
was alive or not. The student would instead decide whether or
not the cat is alive, and their decision would determine the status
of the cat.
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In terms of the
student’s powers, you
can think of it as a door
that leads into two
separate realities: one
where the student has
powers, and one where
the student does not.
As a result of the Power
Curriculum
program, Trained under Academy City’s Power Curriculum Program,
they can manually Accelerator is the single most powerful Esper ever created.
choose the door they want to pass through, as opposed to the
door being randomly chosen for them.
The Reality of Reality
Let’s face it; the idea of choosing your own reality is pretty
kick-ass. The idea of that same reality giving you immense
powers and possibly dominion over the world makes it even
more tantalizing. But just how real is the Personal Reality?
As per philosophy and general logic, everyone already has
their own “Personal Reality.” You don’t see the world exactly
the same way your neighbor does, your neighbor doesn’t see the
world the exact same way their mother does, and so on. While
we all reside within the same space, everyone’s concept of the
real world is different, sometimes slightly, sometimes not so
slightly.
The ability to utterly ignore principles of physics and gain
control of the natural world is, unfortunately, impossible.
Try to conduct high levels of electricity through yourself without
proper equipment and you’ll get fried. Try to lift a building with
your bare hands, and, well, you’ll probably be there for a while.
For now, we’re all stuck sharing this humble reality of ours. Why
“now”, instead of forever? Simple. There are still aspects of the
natural world we have to figure out. Physics is still chipping away
at the walls, making remarkable discoveries as it digs towards
the grand truth it hopes exists. Also, with biotechnology moving
at the current pace it is, we may have artificial augments in the
future that give us abilities once confined to the realm of fiction.
Those could range anywhere from implanting mechanical
devices to altering even our own genetic code.
In short, the Personal Reality is something more akin to a
Personal Fantasy. We can’t pull every string of nature with our
bare hands, or slap physics in the face and tell it what to do. At
best, we can toy with the concept in our most lucid of dreams.
But, as science has proven time and time again, the impossible
can very well become the possible. So who knows? Maybe one
day science will make your certain reality take on a very
“uncertain” quality.
Anime Reign | Issue 2 | 2013