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Cueca Solo
I listen to the news when I walk after work. I just like knowing what’s going on in the world, and the news gives me something to focus on other than how tired I am of walking in circles.
There was a horrifying segment on mass graves in Iraq. Over 7000 missing persons reports were filed in Baghdad between 2005 and 2007.
Seven thousand civilians have disappeared.
What struck me the hardest was a comment by a man who’s brother is still missing.
“He is not a dead person, yet he is not a living person, either.”
It struck me that this is Schrödinger’s cat at it’s most horrible, and I wonder whether these situations were what Schrödinger had in mind at some point.
Schrödinger lived through both World War I and World War II–and in fact left German because of Hitler. When he created his example of Schrödinger’s Cat, I wonder whether it was the situations of the families after WWI and during WWII that brought this to mind.
How horrible for these families to have no closure. To be living Schrödinger’s dilemma, not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead.
And this situation has been repeated since WWII, and throughout history.
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August 27th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Schrodinger postulated the Gedankexperiment in 1935, so I doubt he had this in mind, though it is an easy retrofit.
It is easy to forget that people disappeared without a trace quite regularly even in Europe well into the 20th Century. We live in charmed times, and the fact that these kind of things are (relatively) rare tragedies points to that. Not that we don’t have a ways to go in the undeveloped world, but the fact that there are even statistics and reports in Iraq is a good thing. Whenever I despair for the future of mankind, I read a history book and then I feel a lot better.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Well, I did say *both* WWI and WWI. :)
And you are right. But in some ways the distance we have come makes our failures all the more upsetting.