Wanted...Dead or Alive

Why is "thought experiment" of Schrödinger's cat (btm. 17- 18) so fitting an end to the first section of the novel? Why does Henry reject it as a thought experiment? How does the image of the cat in the box address the idea of disasters that occur outside the range of our own consciousness? In other words, why after hearing on the radio that the plane has crashed, does Henry think "Schrödinger's dead cat is alive after all" (36).

McEwan introduces Henry Perowne in his novel Saturday as a successful surgeon who is happily married with two grown children. Perowne lies in bed in the early hours of Saturday morning. He has just finished a long and strenuous week at the hospital and now "wakes to find himself already in motion" (McEwan 1). Perowne rises from bed and watches the city slowly awake as well and details even the nurses walking home from the hospital. After much contemplation of why is awake and references to the draft coming in from the cold of the night, he sees a plane- what he first thought was a comet- caught on fire crash into the bed of the darkness. He goes back and forth in his mind whether he should wake his wake but decides not to wake her to a nightmare. He wonders to himself what could have happened to the plane and if the people on the plane are dead or alive. He resides back to his quarters and concludes he "observed a catastrophe from a safe distance"(15).

As he comes away from the window back to his bed he remembers a thought experiment he learned in a physics course. The process was that Schrodinger’s cat was covered in a box and it is unknown whether the cat is alive or randomly been killed. Until the lid to the box is lifted, both possibilities exist in a parallel universe. This thought process is very fitting to the first section of the chapter because it indicates Perowne’s need to know the outcome of things and the power he has in everyday life- as a surgeon- to predict and control the effects of causes. However in this situation he has no idea of the state of the passengers on the plane or even if there were any passengers on the plane while it exploded. In a parallel universe, where the lid is not lifted, both possibilities exist- whether the passengers are “frightened and safe, or dead” (18). However, because Perowne is accustomed to have the power and knowledge of outcomes he can make no human sense of this thought experiment. He believes the result “exists separately in the world, independent of himself, known to others, awaiting his discovery” (18).

Soon after he lingers at the foot of the bed debating on whether to wake his wife, he decides to go downstairs and speaks with his “blues-musician” son over a cup of coffee. Perowne tells his son about the plane crash he witnesses and they look on the news for a “breaking news update”. The two men learn it was a Russian cargo plane on the run from Riga to Birmingham. The news report announces that one of the engines caught on fire and that neither of the two-man crew was hurt. Henry then thinks that the dead cat is alive after all. He thinks this because now that the news has announced the event publicly and numbered casualties at zero, his mind can finally cease and no longer race between whether the passengers are alive or not. This disaster has occurred outside the range of man’s consciousness, only until it is announced publicly- when the lid is lifted.
Word Count- 536