A Many Worlds
View And The Life Of A Mouse Or The True Story Of
Schrodinger's Cat
by Rick Tornello
The year is 1925 in a small
laboratory at the University of Zurich. Annemarie,
the wife of the soon to be great professor,
disrupts him in some thought experiment, his hand
covered in chalk and equations written all over
the blackboard behind him.
“Yes Anne what is it
now?”
“Erwin you just
received a letter from the United States. It’s
a legal document.”
“Read it to me,”
he says in a dismissive manner.
She begins, “Dr. Erwin
Rudolph Alexander Schrodinger, Professor
University Of Zurich, you are herby commanded to
appear before the Federal District Court,
Hollywood, in the Republic of California to
answer the following complaint:
ASPCA vs. Dr. Erwin
Schrodinger…”
He interrupts, “the
charge?”
“Cruelty to animals…”
she replies.
“What are you talking
about? This is insane.”
“Dear, it seems that
your foul little pet mouse Micha, the one that
disappeared, that you blamed on me, is living in
California with some artist as his protector or
something like that. They brought the complaint
to the ASPCA.”
“And what does this
idiotic complaint allege?”
Annemarie holds back a
chuckle as she reads the complaint to make sure
she has all the facts correct.
“Well what does it
state? I have work to do.”
Annemarie summarizes,
“It goes on to state that Micha Mouse claims
you attempted to murder and not murder him by way
of a wave function and superposition experiment.
Said mouse escaped by gnawing his way out of a
wooded box designed to possibly release a deadly
poison, and then possibly not, within which he
was held against his will.”
Erwin interrupts her.
“You mean to tell me that Micha, as smart as
he might have been, was smart enough to escape
from here, find his way to a ship, cross the
Atlantic, and then manage to travel across the
continent. And on top of that he moved in with
this artist or some such nonsense convincing her,
I assume the artist is female, no man in his
right mind would play with a mouse and…”
Annemarie, her hands on her
hips, documents scrunched in one hand, stares at
Erwin and says, “Whose pet
mouse was Micha? And who taught him
mathematics and to type?”
Erwin stops. He rolled his
eyes and says, “Yes you have a point. So
Micha is in the United States. He convinced some
hare brained artist to take him in and now I’m
being sued and charged with cruelty to Micha.”
“Yes dear and it is
California. And as I understand, California can
be considered a totally different reality.”
“Mein Gott! Annemarie,
that gives me another idea. I’ll write a
letter to Dr. Einstein about the possibility of,
what would you call it, hmmmm, let me think,
parallel realities? Does it work somewhat with my
ideas on superposition. I’m not sure. I’ll
have to do the math.” He faces the
blackboard, starts writing some equations when he
turns to his wife and asks, “Are you sure
this isn’t some sort of joke?”
”No it is not. The
letter was delivered by a messenger form the
American Embassy.”
“Can I ignore it?”
“No, not at all,”
she says.
“What do they really
want? There’s got to be something about this.
They can’t actually expect me to travel to
America to answer this absurd charge? And hiring
a lawyer would cost a fortune.”
“Dear, there is a
separate note. It’s sealed.” Annemarie
opens it, reads it and then looks up at Erwin
Schrodinger. “You are correct, again.”
“Of course, well?”
She continues, “The
artist name is mentioned here but the document
states we can never disclose it. The artist
states that Micha is a wonderful animal and is
healthy. He adds that as he understands it, Micha
still belongs to you. And that Micha really has
no rights to stand on.”
“So what has that do
with anything except when I get that mouse back…”
“There’s more,”
Annemarie interrupts her husband again. “If
you allow this artist animator, aha an
illustrator, to adopt Micha, he will have all the
charges dropped. All you have to do is sign the
enclosed documents, give up all rights to Micha
and any thing that might become of him. There’s
a signature and a paw print. How cute. By the way
we can never mention the artist’s name, ever.”
“Have you ever heard
of him? I can’t even make out his signature,”
says Erwin looking the letter and the
accompanying documents.
No. He must be young,”
she answers. “What wife would put up with a
husband with a nasty pet mouse?” She laughs
at her own joke and gives Erwin a peck on the
cheek.
He signs it and then says,
“Give this copy to our lawyer and make sure
the original gets posted to the embassy as soon
as possible. I have work to do. All this for a
mouse? My reputation is on the line for what?
“I have Rocky the
neighbor’s cat here. We’ve become
friends.” He points to a very fat black and
white Sylvester looking beast curled up on the
desk. The cat opens one green eye in a quite
bored cat look. Erwin looks around and then says,
“And I’ll use that damned cat. He’s
too stupid and lazy. And next time, I’m
going to construct a steel box just like Dr.
Einstein suggested. And instead of poison I’ll
use gunpowder. The explosion will eliminate the
contradiction of observation and observer and the
linear combination of possible states.”
Erwin stops and gives the
almost sleeping cat a pet. “Yes you’re
mine now and to hell with that mouse. Imagine
getting all wrapped up about a mouse. I have a
class to teach.”
“Rerooow,” said
Rocky as he curled up into a ball.
by
RdotTornello © & the Village idiot Press
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