The experiments Schrodinger should have done

Erwin Schrödinger, do you know the name? He was a Nobel-winning, Austrian physicist who questioned the commonly held view of what quantum physicists call superposition. The core conundrum of superposition is that subatomic particles exist in multiple states at the same time. Schrödinger's challenge to this view came in the form of a mental puzzle, which is sometimes called a thought experiment, which forced other physicists, including Einstein, to acknowledge that superposition did not seem to hold with observable reality with non-subatomic things, like say cats.

OK, so that’s very heavy and science-y but I need you to stay with me! The actual thought experiment (all thoughts, no actual cats were harmed in the performance of this experiment. No need to call PETA on me. Or him.) helps to make this much easier to comprehend.

Schrödinger’s experiment imagines a cat in a box with a contraption that stands a 50/50 chance of setting off poisonous gas.  (Einstein had a version in which the contraption set off explosives).  Thus, once the experiment is concluded, the cat is either alive or dead, but before opening the box, you, standing on the outside of the box, don't know which is true.

According to the accepted theory of superposition, in that moment, the cat technically, is in both states: dead and alive. Again, according to the theory, it is the act of looking into the box that forces nature's decision, in the language of the video (above) and “collapses the dual reality”. It is quite literally our curiosity that kills the cat. To be perfectly clear, Schrödinger didn't believe this to be true; he devised the thought experiment to show that superposition, at least for visible objects, is absurd.

I lay all of that out to offer this for your consideration: if Schrödinger had done this thought experiment with African Americans instead of cats, his conclusion might have been completely different.    It seems that Black folk involved in dangerous, possibly life-ending encounters with the police are the proof that the dual state does in fact exist for things larger than subatomic particles. Perhaps it doesn’t for cats, but for Black, Native, and Hispanic folk? Oh yeah. That dual state, that superposition, is very real.

People of color live in a perpetual state of dual reality.

They are simultaneously guilty (& not) [Walter Scott];
They are simultaneously compliant (& not) [Mike Brown];
They are simultaneously threatening (& not) [Terrence Crutcher];
They are simultaneously fitting the description (& not) [Philando Castile];

They are simultaneously adult (& not) [Tamir Rice];

They are simultaneously victim (& not) [Charleena Lyles].

There is another important difference.  Schrödinger's cats have a 50% survival rate, but Schrödinger's POC end up dead a whole lot more often.

Additionally, the revised thought experiment confirms that it is the observation (by the police) that causes Schrödinger's POC to die.  A siren, a flashing blue light, a badge, a gun, and the observation of a POC, and Schrödinger might deserve another Nobel Prize.  Which like justice for Schrödinger's POC, must be awarded posthumously.

Which brings us to the trials………

If we extend the Schrödinger metaphor to the trials of those charged with unlawfully killing POC in routine police encounters, we find that the probabilities that ought to apply simply do not.   Perhaps, once the dual reality of the alive and dead POC collapses, bringing the officers to court further “collapses [any semblance of a] dual reality”?

With cats and poison gas (or explosives), the laws of probability apply. With Schrödinger’s Police Trials, as with Schrödinger’s POC? Not so much. When we look at the trials, probabilities go entirely out the window. Malefactors get acquitted a whole lot more than 50% of the time.

When it comes to the trials, this ain’t much of an experiment. There is no duality, there is only reality. We don't have to get to the end of the experiment to know the outcome. There don’t seem to be two possible outcomes. Probability of acquittal seems to be 1 (which if you remember from high school math, means 100% certainty). All the time, 1. Sure thing. The glove never fits. The jury generally acquits. And in the rare event that it doesn't, sentences are commuted, or charges are completely vacated. So ~1.

When it comes to POC and police trials, there is no dual reality. There is death for POC and acquittal for the POB (people of blue).

Wouldja just look at us! We are busting science wide open! POC outchere proving superposition and shit.

*shrugs*