Friday, April 21, 2006

The contents of decision letters as Schrödinger's Cats


(Contextual material here)

And, regarding the cartoon (hat-tip: Cartoon Stock): Pet-doors:cats::decision-letters:____?____

I have not posted in some time about Mrs. Meridian's successes or failures regarding the law schools she's applied to. In truth, as long-time readers know, I've only spoken of this in passing here, here, and here. But we have good news on this front: we have yet to hear from 3 schools, but of the ones we've heard from, Mrs. M. has been wait-listed only once; all the rest have accepted her.

But.

It's the three best schools she's applied to that we've not yet heard from. She doesn't want to jinx things and, seeing as it's always been good news so far when she's opened the letters, this morning we had something like the following conversation:

Mrs M: Don't open any mail today.
Me: Oh?
MM: No--I want to be the one who opens it.
Me: Why?
MM: I'm afraid that if you open the decision letters, they'll have bad news.
Me: So if YOU open them, they'll have good news?
MM: Yes.
ME: So, so long as the letter remains closed, the potential exists for the letter to simultaneously contain good news AND bad news?
MM: Yes.

Well. Who am I to argue with a basic principle of quantum mechanics? After all, I've linked to the proof of this before.

You'll know sometime after we do.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

But now, you've written about it, so they'll ALL be "no"s.
Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, John B., way to collapse the wavefunction! *rollseyes*

Andrew Simone said...

Mrs. M may have a point...

Anonymous said...

How could you write about it, thereby cursing your faithful and beloved wife in such foul manner?
Men....sheeesh.

The Aunt said...

M's decision to blog about this is debateable. It still doesn't change the fact that it is the opening of the letters that collapses the wave function.

I get this with civil service competition results frequently. Heart rate up, letter in hand, I wait until I'm with someone I know. Neighbour, colleague, anyone. And then I open it and I've passed. Never alone, because then I have failed.

Good luck to Mrs M. and I'm sure she's in. Clever colleges like students with a bit of history as they make the courses more lively.