Schroedinger's Cat Tomás Brody and I

Erwin Scrhoedinger illustrated Quantum Mechanics with a thought experiment. Imagine a cat in a box, with a deadly contraption triggered by an unstable radioactive material. According to the theory developed by him, and others: One has to assign a "probability amplitude" for the situation, either the cat is dead, or  alive, depending on whether the nucleus decayed or not. Only when an observer checked to see if the cat was alive or dead, will the cat die or not.

This is true; for cats though, it is very difficult to set up such experiment. Something called quantum entanglement, based on the wave nature of matter, is involved. It is practically impossible to make all the atoms in the cat act coherently. Therefore do not put your pet under those conditions, first the cat will be annoyed, and second nothing of the sort will happen. This is only a thought experiment.

 Now I have this to write on Tomás Brody. He introduced Lisp to Mexico working at UNAM in the late 60s and early 70s. He collaborated with Marcos Moshinsky calculating numerical tables for nuclear physics. Unfortunately this great human being died in the hands of a thief near the university campus.

I am reading Scheme, in the book by Sussman and Wisdom, I will use Scheme in the upcoming mechanics class I will teach this semester. Scheme is a descendant of Lisp.

In no way  I am like Tomás. Unfortunately my students in Guerrero only have me. I will try to remember that great thinker while I teach.

What about the cat?

I still have trouble with the philosophical underpinnings of Quantum Mechanics, as Tomás was. In my way of thinking, though, Tomás did something back then, that I feel will make my task easier. I guess I should contact Tomás's intellectual descendants at UNAM; since I cannot contact him. While dead Tomás is there in some way.