EXHIBITIONS

17 Books, 131072 Universes

April 17, 2016 – May 18, 2016 
Museum of Science Fiction, Washington, D.C.

Accompanied by an online catalogue and an Audio Guide

The concept of Schrodinger’s Cat has been a recurring theme in various literary works. Not long after the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger devised this thought experiment in 1935, there were several short stories appeared to discuss about it. But in order to get fully understand the theory, these early writers always preferred to conduct the experiment by themselves. Countless cats became the victim of their inspiration. But soon after, one particular writer whose name was N. B. Fort found a curious phenomenon: when he got readers’ letters which talked about the cat he mentioned in one of his short stories (The Cat Who Never Gets out of the Box), he found that somebody said he was sad that the cat was dead while somebody else said she was so happy that the cat was alive when the box was opened. It seems cats lives were determined by the readers. The books themselves became a Schrodinger’s Cat box.

After Fort’s discovery, the theme got even more popular among literary circle. According to incomplete statistics, by the end of 2012, there are at least 56 novels described this poor cat. Some writers picked up this evocative concept and use it in a humorous vein. Several have taken it a step further, pointing out extra complications which might arise should the experiment actually be performed. For example, For example, in his novel American Gods, Neil Gaiman has a character observe, "If they don't ever open the box to feed it, it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead." Likewise, Douglas Adams describes an attempt to enact the experiment in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. By using clairvoyance to see inside the box, it was found that the cat was neither alive nor dead, but missing, and only when somebody reads the novel they can know the status of the cat.

This phenomenon can be explained by the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which was first formulated by Hugh Everett In 1957. In the many-worlds interpretation, both alive and dead states of the cat persist after the box is opened, but are decoherent from each other. In other words, when the box is opened, the observer and the possibly-dead cat split into an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, and an observer looking at a box with a live cat. For instance, if there are two copies of Fort’s short story, there will be 4 (2×2) universes. In this exhibition, we present 17 original copies of different books that mentioned the cat. All these copies were sealed in boxes since they were printed, which can be translated into 131072 (2 to the power of 17) possible universes. 

Organized by Zhangbolong Liu, the Curator of Museum of Science Fetish.

Installation Shots

Audio guide

Exhibition Objects

Picture
The Cat Who Walks through Walls
Date: 1985
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
Picture
Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy
Date: 1988
Author: Robert Anton Wilson
Publisher: Dell
Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
Picture
Schrodinger's Cat 1: THe Universe Next Door
Date: 1979
Author: Robert Anton Wilson
Publisher: Pocket
Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches

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