Talk:Schrödinger's cat in popular culture/Archive 1

Untitled
This article was forked from Schrödinger's cat to keep the fictional treatments of this subject from overrunning the physics. This topic was up for AfD and the decision was to keep, not merge. DV8 2XL 23:37, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Ian McEwan's Saturday
Ian McEwans protagonist Henry Perowne reflects upon the Schrödinger's cat experiment in the very beginning of the novel and doesn't accept its implications, referring to it as "surely another example of a problem of reference." This means he feels the hypothesis of parallel universes only arises due to the restrictions of his own mind, but that "whatever the score, it is already chalked up". Being selected one of the best books of the year 2005 by the new york times and many others, I think it would make sense to include this in the list. But since the novel is not science fiction, it would have to be put under a new header. DeadCow (talk) 09:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Penn Gilette Play
Penn from Penn and Teller wrote a play which featuerd 'Schrödinger's Person'. It was part of a trilogy of plays that over lap, one was Schrödinger's person, one was set in a strip club and the third was on an isolated spot. The idea was that animal rights activist's heard that some scientists were going to hypothesize on Schrödinger's cat and had a death row prisoner encased in a box. I can't remember the name of the play.

A philosophy & 'paradox' issue
Does anybody see a 'relation' of this topic to the question, "If a tree falls in the forest ..." ?

Cecil Adams
"In 1982 Cecil Adams, in his column The Straight Dope, wrote a concise and humorous description of the thought experiment, and Einstein's refutation of same, in the form of an epic poem. "The story of Schroedinger's cat (an epic poem)"

IMO, that "poem" looks like a form of hip-hop. More accurately, a gangsta rap. RocketMaster 17:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

MC Hawking
The Mc Hawking song "Rock out with your Hawk out" references Schrödinger's cat by saying that "I'll stuff you in a box like Schrödinger's cat, you'll be dead and alive until such a time as that, I check and make the wave function collapse...". I think this should be in the article, and maybe have a link to the MC Hawking page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kage-Lupus (talk • contribs) 20:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

Hellsing
Hellsing's Schrödinger is actually a werewolf. 83.254.147.222 14:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you read Schrodinger's page, you'll see that Hirano has explicitly stated he is a catboy, but belongs to the Werwolf unit. In other words, it's a pun. Why references to him were removed from this page, I don't understand. 68.212.237.138 22:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Brewster Rockit
3/24/2007 comic has a team called the Schodinger Cats. http://www.comicspage.com/comicspage/main.jsp?catid=1876&custid=69&file=20070324csbre-a-p.jpg&code=csbre&dir=/brewster

Why cruft?
Why this: ? Putting such a marker on the article should require a note on the talk page – otherwise (IMHO) the marker should be considered littering (not vandalism but a kind of sloppy querulance). Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 11:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree: Take the tag off. Of course this page is , look at the title.  But, it was already voted not to be deleted and that's that. OrcShaman42 17:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No, you don't understand... fictioncruft absolutely does not belong on Wikipedia at all, admitting that it has it means it has to have that junk deleted. The fact that the article itself was not deleted doesn't mean that the article shouldn't be cleaned up. Go read WP:TRIVIA, WP:ENC, WP:NOT and so forth so you can know what is and is not appropriate here. Probably more than half of the junk on this article needs to just be deleted outright, per those policies. You can't just ignore those policies. DreamGuy 21:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, by those standards, it would pretty much needed a book published talking about Schrödinger's cat in popular culture before this page could be viewed as non-trivia and not fictioncruft. MythSearchertalk 15:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. This article needs reliable, independent sources in order to exist. --Eyrian 15:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, this article is a travesty of worthless info all around, but there's nothing in my statement or elsewhere that specifies that a whole book on that topic and that topic only would be needed. There are other reliable sources for that stuff. DreamGuy 14:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal Of "Trivia" and Sloppy Editing
In looking over the article I noticed that the desire to remove so called "trivia" has blinded editors to the fact that at least one item of it was referenced here and that now we have a citation on an external link without any reason for it to be there now in the article.

Unfortunately I wish I could say that this is the first time or even the second time I have seen this occur where "trivia" was removed wholesale but it isn't and I'm guessing it won't be the last time either.

The last edit on the article at this point in time also said ''random uncited information *cannot* be integrated. It must be removed'' to which I say it is no more random than the other examples in the article which I presume since they also aren't cited will be removed in due course.

Of course the rule is actually cite any information and if you can't then remove .Garda40 23:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * "trivia says put it into prose in article not to delete except for elements completely off topic" It is completely off topic for an ENCYCLOPEDIA. See WP:NOT and WP:ENC. Mere references are just complete nonsense. If you would like to create your own site, call it WikiTrivia, and add all that kind of stuff you want, feel free. This is Wikipedia, so we don't. DreamGuy 14:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And if "trivia" is completely off topic for an ENCYCLOPEDIA it would be completely banned.
 * Strangely I can't find a complete ban.
 * And I find it interesting you didn't bother to answer the point about sloppy editing but just decided to wikilawyer .Garda40 19:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, because there is actually science to be learned from it, the criteria for relevance should be less strict than in some cases.  David R. Ingham (talk) 00:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Stargate SG-1
Wasn't Schrodinger's cat mentioned quite prominently on Stargate SG-1? The episode was called Enigma, Sam Carter was discussing the theory with Narim. Then she gave him a cat called Schrodinger. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.50.188 (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Terminator
When the terminator is repairing his eye in the hotel room, the cleaner asks if he 'has a dead cat' in there, almost certainly a reference to Scrodingers Cat in a film about time travel and nuclear war--Bagpuss49 (talk) 19:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Threads
In the post-war scene where children are watching the educational video, the featured section is the outline of a cat with it's skeleton visible, the voice saying 'the cat's skeleton', again almost certainly a reference to Schrodingers Cat, see Terminator entry above--Bagpuss49 (talk) 20:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well.
If you elitist pricks keep deleting "triva" from an article clearly marked "Schrodinger's Cat in POPULAR CULTURE", then we might as well have no article at all, you morons. Stop deleting everything.

Idiots. Mr. Raptor 17:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat agree with Mr. Raptor
This is meant to be a page on pop culture references to Schrodinger's Cat, but seems to only include references in Science-fiction - That being one section unto itself.

There's a page on Wikipedia about Tokyo in Pop Culture, in which each section is a separate reference in pop culture. I think this page would benefit from that format. It doesn't make sense to have an independent section on sci-fi referencing, when those are the only references listed.

I added a reference used in the widely popular TV show House, but was reluctant as there seemed to be no place for it, based on previous edits, and the exclusion of any references other than a heavily incomplete list of sci-fi references to SC. My initial instinct was to instead of titling the section "television series" to specify "as used in television medical dramas" - as this article seems to currently suffer from over specification that's preventing it from being a fully comprehensive source.

The way this article is divided seems strange. A whole section devoted to when it's not necessarily a cat, but another animal? A reference is a reference and the categorization here seems totally arbitrary. I think the introduction in the "Adaptions in Sci-Fi" is really well-written, but again, am questioning why there's like 20 references in that section, but then 2 separate subsections for 2 individual works, and again, no other references outside sci-fi.

Personally, I'd like to see each reference given a section (as in the Tokyo page I mention) -- I don't see the benefit of categorizing the individual references ESPECIALLY since there is only one category. There used to be lots of references listed, such as one by Steve Martin -- that's part of pop culture too. Otherwise this article should just be called "Schrodinger's Cat in Science Fiction"

Sorry for any lack of conciseness here, but it's late and this is the discussion page...

EDIT: Reading the article for deletion page, maybe I'm getting too far ahead here, and not totally understanding what you guys are going for with this article...  However, like Mr. Raptor, I'm questioning the usefulness of the page if there isn't a complete source for all references in pop culture. The reason I actually came upon this article was in trying to find the exact quote from that House ep, having recognized it as a reference to Schrodinger's Cat, and wanting to relay the joke to others. I came to Wikipedia, familiar with its "X in pop culture" articles, and was not only somewhat surprised to not see this particular one listed, but also the lacking of really major ones like The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy. I wanted to offer my thoughts on this, because I think the article needs work one way or another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.216.220 (talk) 03:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

BubbaStrangelove 03:57, 15 October, 2007 (UTC)

Tears for Fears
The band Tears for Fears has a song called "Schrödinger's cat". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.220.113.47 (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

hello? wtf? no R.A.W. reference? FNORD!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_Cat_trilogy -- pretty big oversight, Wikipedians... 199.214.28.40 (talk) 19:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Add it if you think so. Instead of complaining and cursing, it is easier to just add it into the article yourself. MythSearchertalk 02:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)