Schrodinger's Manuscript

One of the things I like most about online manuscript submissions (as opposed to the old days when we had to print out multiple hard copies to mail to the journal) is the ability to check on the status of my manuscript on the submission webpage. Given how long the review process can sometimes take, it's nice to at least be able to see your baby move, however slowly, through the various stages.

But as it turns out, having access to your manuscript's status updates can also be a bad thing. I logged into Journal's website today to check on a manuscript I submitted about a month ago and just happened to catch it at the point where the reviews have all come in, but the editor has yet to make a decision on whether to accept or reject the manuscript.

The thought that a decision letter could be forthcoming any minute now totally kicked my OCD into overdrive. I must have refreshed that webpage at least a dozen times today, hoping to see the status label change to "Manuscript Accepted" or at least "Manuscript in Revision." Never mind that for all I knew, the editor was out-of-town or insanely busy and wasn't going to make a decision anytime soon...I couldn't stop myself from checking and re-checking every time I had the chance.

All day long, the words "Manuscript Awaiting Decision" taunted me. And now, 12 hours later, there is still no decision. Gah!

At least I managed to amuse myself this afternoon with the thought that until I actually observe the status label change to "Manuscript Accepted" or "Manuscript Rejected," perhaps my manuscript is simultaneously accepted and rejected...and maybe even in revision and in resubmission as well. I guess this would make the reviewers the radioactive substance, and the editor the hammer that breaks the flask of poison?

Ah...geek thoughts.

Here is the original (read: unbutchered) version of Schrodinger's thought experiment:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.