Does anyone here know about Schrodinger's cat theory?
477844
Yes. He stated that the act of observing a system changes it's outcome. If you put a cat in a box with a radiation source, it will eventually kill the cat. However, with the box closed, you don't know if the cat is dead. Consequently, the cat belongs partially to the Dead sample and the Living sample. You will only know if you open the box and look.
707791
Besides the classic standard model of quantum mechanics, there's the superspace version where all possibilities happen in alternate universes.  Then there's string theory and its higher dimensional cousin m-theory.  As far as I know, that last is most current.  Recent Nobel prize for it at Institute of Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara.  But see link as well.
325710
I can't help with Unified Theory, but here's the way a professor explained string theory to me.\n\nImagine that you have a tightrope, and that an elephant is walking on it.  To that elephant, there is only one dimension - the elephant can move forward, and it can move backwards, but it can only move along that straight line.\n\nNow picture that same tightrope, but instead of an elephant, an ant is walking along it.  Like the elephant, the ant can also move forwards and back along the tightrope.  However, the ant can also walk all the way around the tightrope (apparently ants are good at clinging to things while upside-down).  For the ant, there are two possible dimensions - the forward and back one, and the around one.\n\nString theory is basically the idea that there are more dimensions than we realize.  We as humans are the elephant of the previous example - we see only three dimensions, with a potential 4th in terms of time.  According to string theory, there are ants in the world that can access more than these three or four dimensions that we are aware of.  String theorists are currently trying to prove that this is the case.
190186
Schroedinger said that the cat must be in a superposition of dead and alive states before the observer opens the box because the cat's fate is tied to the wave function of the atom, which is itself in a superposition of decayed and undecayed states. Of course, the cat can't be dead and alive at the same time, wave functions don't give a complete view of reality and that's what Schroedinger tried to say with this paradox.
104579
well, aside from the spooky sort of supernaturalism of "scientist" there (ironic name, my friend), as i understand the "parallel universes" concept began as an interpretation of quantum mechanics.\n\nthere are many different interpretations of the seemingly-bizarre nature of quantum mechanics.   here is a list:\nhttp://dmoz.org/Science/Physics/Quantum_Mechanics/Interpretations/\n\ni believe that the notion of parallel universes sprang up as a popularization of everett's many-worlds interpretation.   consider the schrodinger's cat paradox.  (this won't make sense if you don't know about schrodinger's cat, so go to the above link and read about it.)\n\nthe cat is in the box, and after some time the cat may be either alive or dead; we don't know because we haven't observed it.  the paradox is that the cat cannot be both alive and dead at the same time!  so how to interpret this?\n\neverett's attempt essentially says that when we stop observing the cat, 2 universes continue on - one with the cat alive, and one with the cat dead.  when we open the box and look inside, the cat will be alive or dead depending on which universe we are in.  this way the cat doesn't have to be in both states at once.\n\nthis is the essential idea, but you should read about it more deeply if you're interested in it.  also the other interpretations of QM are enlightening to think about, too.\n\ncheers!
227734
It's a concrete example of his indeterminancy theory.  Now, I'm going off the top of my head with what I recall about it, so I might be wrong about details.\n\nYou set up a box so that if a radioactive emission hits a sensor, a gun will fire into the empty chamber.  You place a cat in the chamber, and close the box.  Until you open the chamber, you cannot know whether the cat is alive or dead.  In other words, the cat is in neither state until it is observed to be one or the other.  \n\nI've had not enough sleep, so I hope I did well.
354916
Yes, but have you ever heard of Pavlov's cat?\n\nOf course not!  Cause that would have been the end of him:\n\nDay One: Rang bell; cat ignored it.\nDay Two: Rang bell; cat said he'd already eaten.\nDay Three: Rang bell; cat answered the door.\nDay Four: Rang bell but cat put his paw on it so it only made that little thunk sound.\nDay Five (the last day): Cat rang bell; I ate.\n\n~Eddie Izzard in 'Definite Article'\n\n* * * *\nSorry for the lack of a serious answer, but I find that bit hysterical!  If you want more information on the actual experiment with Pavlov's dog, click on th elink below. =)
63744
B only seems impossible because you're looking at it from a small, everyday perspective.  Read a book on quantum phenomenon and you'll discover that particles literally appear out of no where everyday, and we take this as completely normal.  The Universe and Everything is far more sophisticated than you're giving it credit for.
406372
The following things are not random, but appear to be:\n\nFlipping coins, throwing dice, the weather, etc.\n\nAll of the above are ruled by the laws of physics. But in those cases, the results might as well be random because the equations governing them are so complex that in practice we can't find exact solutions for them.\n\nHowever, one might ask whether there exist any physical system that it truly random - or do the equations of physics predict exact results for everything? (The only reason we don't know the future, in that case, would be because the equations are too difficult to solve.)\n\nThe answer is actually quite surprizing. Subatomic particles - that is, things smaller than atoms - are truly random. It is impossible, even in principle, to ever calculate what they will do next. All we can do is calculate a probability. That's from an area of physics called Quantum Mechanics. So, in this area of physics, instead of asking a question like, "Where will the particle land?", we ask, "What's the chance of the particle landing over here? Or over there? Or anywhere?" Quantum mechanics produces some truly "spooky" effects - such as the fact that an electron, trapped at the bottom of a bowl, can get out of the bowl without having to get up over the sides! That's a phenomenon known as tunneling, and is due to the fact that there's a small chance of the electron being outside the bowl, even if the electron doesn't have enough energy to get over the walls. That means that it must, at some point, be seen outside the bowl. But it's energy means that it can't go over the walls! So, it basically "teleports" from inside the box to outside the box. There are other quantum mechanical effects due to probability as well - but I'm sure you can find those with a quick internet search...
697707
Quantum mechanics is fascinating, as Einstein's famous quote that "God does not play dice with the universe" is turned on its head.  The random nature associated with the inner workings of atoms and quarks is astonishing when one considers that despite all of the unpredictability of subatomic activity, things in the macroscopic world follow predictable patterns that seem to defy common sense.
760977
Try this website for information on and comparisons of the theories of Maslow and Alderfer:\n\nhttp://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html
721615
Parallel Universe is a term used in science fiction, and in descriptions of some concepts in physics.  There is no Parallel Universe Theory.\n\nThere is something in physics called the "many-worlds interpretation" of quantum mechanics.  This has to do with the awkward problem of how we interpret what happens to things from the moment a certain kind of event occurs to when we make an observation of it.  Some events are completely random ... such as when a particle of a radioactive material decays.  So lets say you have a radioactive substance in a box, and if it decays, this causes a poison to be released which kills a cat in the box.  (This is the famous "Schrödinger's Cat" thought experiment, and nobody actually *does* this experiment and kills a cat ... it's just a hypothetical exercise.) Let's say the odds are 50-50 that the particle decays.  Before we open the box and look inside, is the cat alive or dead?\n\nSome people would say that the cat is *both* alive and dead.  The technical term for it is that the cat is in a 'superposition' of two states, both alive and dead ... and the cat 'collapses' into one state or the other at the moment we open the box.  This is the dominant interpretation.\n\nBut a different interpretation is that, at the moment of decay, the world splits into two realities ... two worlds or universes you might say.  In one world, the cat is alive, in the other the cat is dead.  As you are part of the world, you too get split into two versions.  One version is in the world with the dead cat.  The other version of you is in the world with the live cat.  It is not until you open the box that you know which version of the world you are in.\n\nHow does this affect your daily life?  Well, it's possible that some decisions you make (small ones, like what you had for breakfast, whether you wore the red shirt or the green shirt ... basically decisions that are more a matter of whim rather than much thinking or logic) are affected by random effects in your brain.  If so, then the world may have split into two parallel worlds at that moment.  Maybe putting on the red shirt made you slightly more noticeable at and that cyclist that *almost* hit you, in a parallel world actually did crash into you and sprained your ankle.   Science fiction stories and movies love to play with this stuff.
972422
Looks like only one person got the right idea so far so I will try to underscore that.\n\nEveryone who says that it is possible to have NOTHING inside a box if you have a total vacuum has ignored quantum theory which has proven to reflect reality extremely well.\n\nThe uncertainty principle allows energy to be borrowed from the vacuum for a very short time.  The vacuum is seething with pairs of "virtual" particle+antiparticle pairs that are created with this borrowed energy.  They pop into existence and then annihilate with each other extremely quickly.\n\nSo no, as far as anybody knows we have strong reason to believe that it is impossible to have absolutely nothing inside a box because something is always popping up everywhere in space.  Maybe if you had a very small box and very big luck luck it would be empty just for the tiniest period of time.
62175
Actually, the wiki on this one is unusually good (and right, for once):\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string\n\nCosmic strings are sometimes confused with the strings of string theory.  There's considerably more observational evidence for the former than the latter. \n\n(I say they're different things, but every time someone like me says something like that, some party-pooper like Bohr comes along and makes a liar out of us.  There's a chance, in my mind at least, that they could be closely related somehow since, supposing either of the things even exist, they're both topological defects in space.  But, that's pure conjecture on my part).\n\nMichio Kaku of the City College of New York has written on both.  If you're looking for something on string theory, and not cosmic string theory, Barton Zwiebach has written the only introductory book worth reading.  If you really did mean cosmic strings, there are several recent journal publications listed in that wikipedia article (and they're all, for once, actually referreed journals).\n\nAs an aside, I see a lot of people posting on both of these around here as though they were somehow proven fact.  There is almost no observational evidence for cosmic strings, and there is none at all for string theory.  There isn't anything wrong with thinking about things like this -- that's where new answers come from.  It's just that I'd like to see the certainty levels turned down a bit.  In the case of string theory, the theory is in much better shape than it was a few decades ago, but it still has no real central theme, it has no real sharp predictions (like the Higgs-Boson, for example, of the standard model of particle physics), and absolutely no experimental verification or support of any kind.\n\nIt just kind of torques me a little that so many people run around on these boards decrying the theory of evolution as unproven, wild-ass conjecture (when, in fact, the evidence supporting the theory of evolution has been more exhaustively catalogued than it has been for probably any other theory in history), while still others are lauding string theory as something as sure as Maxwell's equations.  String theory is a fun idea, and probably a necessary one, but it isn't a sound idea just yet.
10601
This is one of those wierd questions in Quantum Mechanics where there is no way to visualize the answer. Our brains, understandably, have evolved to handle falling rocks, jumping tigers, and other macroscopic objects. We have numerous hardwired responses to these things which follow classical, Newtonian Physics.\n\nOn the atomic and subatomic scales where objects behave according to the laws of Quantum Mechanics things are different. An electron can behave like a wave in this experiment, but a particle in another experiments. According the classical physics (and our macroscopic-loving brain's "common sense) nothing can be *both* a particle and a wave. \n\nSo what is an electron? A wavicle? A partiave? \n\nNope. An electron is a, well, an electron. Sometime it will behave *exactly* like a wave, other times it will behave *exactly* like a particle. Never will it behave like some intermeditate or mixed state.\n\nThe problem - to the extent there is a problem - is that we cannot visiualize this. There is no way to form a picture in our heads the same way we can form a picture of a ball flying though the air. Our brains are meant to operate on macroscopic phenomena, and subatomic phenomena just behave differently.\n\nPresumably some other alien species could have some sort of mind, or mind-like thing, for which the whole wave-particle duality thing just makes perfect sense! But presumably this aliens would be confused by what are to us the simple motions of a ball flying through the air.\n\nSo, in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, there is no sense in which the "other forms" of an object change after a wavefunction is collapsed. That this seems to be a problem is more a function of our brains and how they have evolved.\n\n\n(As an aside, it should be said that it is possible to understand the mathematics underlying Quantum Mechanics. And to be able to use this math to make extremely accurate predictions of how electrons, atoms, etc. will behave. These predictions can be tested experimentally and Quantum Mechanics holds up extremely well. \n\nSo while QM is very wierd, there is an enormous amount of evidence that it is correct.)
632020
That we've found so far, anyway. The Michael Crichton book Timeline (not the movie, dear God not the movie) talks about light particle/waves as indicative of the existence of parallel universes. It's very interesting. Not only do they exhibit particle/wave behavior but no one can observe a photon where it is, only where it was. And sometimes it seems to have disappeared entirely only to reappear in a different place. Makes me wish I was smart enough to full grasp quantum physics.
913177
Yes there are, and the best (imho) explanations in plain, non-technical language are in a book by Richard Feynmann titled  "QED The strange theory of light and matter".\nWhen you first read what actually happens when light bounces off a mirror it's mind blowing. There are equally good explanations of why a simple lens works, etc.