Schrdingers Pedophilia: The Cat Is Out Of The Bag (Box) – Forbes

Erwin Schrdinger

According to a December 2021 report from the Irish Times, the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrdinger was a pedophile.

To refresh memory: Schrdinger made many astounding contributions to the burgeoning fields of quantum physics, electrodynamics, molecular biology, and color theory. For example, nearly 100 years ago, he gave the world a way to calculate the probable energy and position of electrons in space and time. For non-scientists, the thought experiment now called Schrdinger's Cat is perhaps his most fun gift to science. Imagine a cat living in a sealed box that is equipped with a contraption that has a 50% chance of killing it via a random, subatomic event. Quantum physics deals in probabilities rather than fixed realities. Given this, the question Schrdinger posed was whether two probable states could exist at once. Could the cat in the box be simultaneously alive and dead? Having asked, Schrdinger also pointed out that there is a measurement problem that precludes answering his question with certainty. No one can learn if the cat exists simultaneously in two states of being because, the moment that anyone opens the box and looks in, the cat becomes either alive or dead.

Perhaps we all should have known. The evidence given by the Irish Times has been staring us in the face for almost a decade. Citing specific sources, the Irish Times article details two stories.

Ithi Junger. British astrophysicist John Gribbin reported in his 2013 biography Erwin Schrdinger and the Quantum Revolution that, at the age of 39, Schrdinger became enamored of 14-year-old Ithi, whom he was tutoring in math. As well as the maths, the lessons included a fair amount of petting and cuddling [as Schrdinger stated in his diary] and Schrdinger soon convinced himself that he was in love with Ithi. There is no evidence that things went beyond petting and cuddling when Ithi was 14, but before he died in 1961 Schrdinger admitted that hed impregnated her when she was 17. Her abortion left her sterile.

Barbara MacEntee. According to Schrdingers biographer Walter Moore (writing in 2015 in Schrdinger: Life and Thought), Schrdinger kept a list in his diary of the women and girls hed romanced. A 12-year-old named Barbara MacEntee was on it. Schrodinger approached her when he was 53 years old. Her astonished family asked a Catholic priest to intervene. As Moores biography explained, the priest had a serious word with [Schrdinger], and muttering dark imprecations, [Schrdinger] desisted from further attentions to Barbara, although he listed her among the unrequited loves of his life.

Quoting directly from Schrdingers diaries, Moore revealed that the physicist justified his attraction to girls by considering that, being a genius (which he believed no woman ever could be), he was naturally entitled. It seems to be the usual thing that men of strong, genuine intellectuality are immensely attracted only by women who, forming the very beginning of the intellectual series, are as nearly connected to the preferred springs of nature as they themselves. Nothing intermediate will do, since no woman will ever approach nearer to genius by intellectual education than some unintellectuals do by birth so to speak.

After reading the Irish Times article, I found myself emotionally agape. Wanting, perhaps, to preserve for myself the glory of Schrdingers scientific reputation, I tried to normalize his behavior. Searching out examples of pedophilia among other western cultural heroes, I learned that:

Edgar Allen Poe married his 13-year-old cousin.

As reported in the Paris Review, after his wife died, Mark Twain dabbled with angel-fish. (Thats what he called schoolgirls.) Theres no indisputable evidence of sexuality but there was an awful lot of promiscuous cuddling.

Horatio Alger, who wrote rags-to-riches stories about young, disadvantaged boys, was briefly a Unitarian minister. He was expelled from the ministry for boy-directed pederasty.

Rock and roll stars with sexual interests in very young girls have included Jerry Lee Lewis, who was 22 when he married his 13-year-old cousin. (Rumor has it that she still believed in Santa Claus.) A 24-year-old Elvis Presley dated Priscilla when she was 14.

Pedophilia is surprisingly common. The psychiatric professions Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V places its prevalence in the male population at 3%-5% and acknowledges that it is both highly resistant to treatment and less prevalent among women.

The DSM V has no listing for Pedophilia. Rather, it defines Pedophilic Disorder as a diagnosis assigned to adults (defined as age 16 and up) who have sexual desire for prepubescent children.

According to information published by Johns Hopkins All Children Hospital, puberty is not a now-you-see-it-now-you-dont kinda thing. For girls, the first signs can come at around age 8. For some girls, the transition into biological adulthood happens quickly. Even if it doesnt, it generally resolves by around age 16. For boys, puberty generally starts about two years later.

Thinking about Schrdinger in the context of the DSM V definition of Pedophilic Disorder, one point of confusion arose for me. At age 14 and age 12, Ithi and Barbara may have reached puberty already. Does that absolve his behavior with them in any way?

By modern standards, legally it does not. In Ireland, the age of sexual consent is now 17. In the United States, each of the 50 states has its own law that defines the age of consent as 16, 17, or 18.

Whats more, there are enormous differences between grown men and very young women in terms of social power and the sort of confidence necessary to make wise, safe, sexual choices.

This is all to say that pedophilia like that of Edwin Schrdinger is probably abhorrent any way you look at it.

In 2015, the Norwegian philosopher Ole Martin Moen of the University of Oslo wondered in the Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics about The Ethics of Pedophilia. According to Moen, pedophilia itself is a morally neutral sexual preference. It is the actions harming children that are immoral.

Being a pedophile is unfortunate for the pedophile himself, who will most likely not have a good sexual and romantic life.... he wrote.

Pedophile as victim seems a stretch even for someone like me who wants to preserve her image of Schrdinger as an intellectual hero. Moen, however, may have been serious about his pity the poor pedophile idea. He suggested a way in which society at large might save pedophiles from themselveswhile saving children from pedophiles. It could legalize ways for pedophiles to satisfy their compulsions with victimless entertainments like kiddie porn fiction and computer-generated images.

At least the use of computer-generated images would obviate the need for the truly repulsive act of posing real-life children in sexual ways. As Moet pointed out, though, a question of practicality remains. Would making use of such fiction and images satisfy pedophiles urges? Or might it instead encourage them to act out dangerously?

Moet cited research done in the 1990s that suggests that kiddie porn does not make pedophiles more prone to engage in real-world sex with children and that, indeed, it may give pedophiles a harmless outlet for their sexual urges. This idea seems to be buttressed by 1999 and 2011 research also cited by Moet; when Japan and the Czech Republic lifted their bans on kiddie porn, the rates of child rape dropped. From those two countries criminal justice experiences, Moet concluded that "Granted our current knowledge, it therefore seems that texts and computer-generated graphics with pedophilic content may result in less adult-child sex.

Schrdingers cat is both alive and dead until you open the box to look, whereupon it becomes either ... [+] alive or dead.

As helpful as such texts and graphics may turn out to be, I have trouble imagining a more divisive issue to raise state by state in todays America than whether governments should allowor perhaps even sponsorkiddie porn.

Meanwhile, Im still dealing with my shock about Erwin Schrdinger. For me right now, he exists in two states of being at once. In other words, Erwin Schrdinger has become Schrdingers Cat. He is both a beacon of scientific light and a monster. Both/and, not yet either/or. That being said, some behavior is just too putrid to tolerate. As the revelations about his behavior continue to curdle inside of me, one of those views will take precedence. Very soon, I suspect, I will say, Hes dead to me.

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Schrdingers Pedophilia: The Cat Is Out Of The Bag (Box) - Forbes