Schrödinger's Cat

The following is a written statement found under possession of ex-Det. Ryan Bertrand on the 24^th of April, 2014

This is a confession; the testament of my deeds.

I never thought one day I would sit here writing this and yet here I am. Though I take full responsibility for my actions I must say that I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for Prof. Mathews and I have to thank him for that.

After almost a year off duty with psychiatric evaluations and therapy the first case I was handed on my return was a missing person’s case. Start me off with the small stuff they might have thought.

Liona Mathews, 36, Caucasian, wife of James P. Mathews, 50, Professor Emeritus of theoretical physics, University of Lanwin was reported missing by her husband 24 hours before on the 14^th of march. She had apparently left her husband’s office after having lunch with him to go home. She never got there. Her husband was the last person to see her alive as far as we could tell and naturally the suspicion shifted to him.

A background check and some house calls around the neighborhood of the victim yielded nothing to confirm our suspicions: perfect couple; the occasional spat; nothing of note.

But as the investigation dwelled deeper into the life of Leona, I found a number of interesting credit card payments made by her to certain seedy motels; the kind of place that rents by the hour and forgets your face as soon as you leave.

Further probing and a thorough questioning of her closest friends revealed that she was having an affair with one Tobu Higonabi, an assistant professor of theoretical physics in the same university as her husband.

Our attempts to apprehend the man and bring him in for questioning proved to be in vain as the constables sent to bring him in, found his dead body and Prof. James Mathews near it with a written confession in his hands.

Many would say that the professor’s reason for committing the murder was lunatic but I would disagree. I have seen lunatic and this wasn’t it. And after all, it was backed by scientific facts after all.

His reason for killing Tobu Higonabi was simple and given in full detail in his written confession. His motive was simple; in fact it was the thing he had taught to students for years.

His wife had apparently told him about the affair and had promised to break it off on the day that she went missing. She was in fact not heading home after lunch but rather to Toru Higonabi’s home, to apparently meet with him and put an end to the affair. And of course she was never seen again. By process of elimination and certain blood patches he had found in Toru Higonabi’s car, the Professor arrived at the conclusion that his wife had come to some harm under the man. He in fact suspected that she had been killed.

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics states that a quantum particle exists at a particular place in space only under observation, without which it has the probability of existing everywhere. The Professor theorized that since ideas are flows of electrons through the brain they also must obey the Copenhagen rule. Electrons being quantum particles fall under the theories jurisdiction and so in effect for any idea to exist it must be observed. The ideas expression might exist in a macroscopic system but the seeds are in the microscopic system. It was a case where the macroscopic and the microscopic are linked like the thought experiment of Schrödinger.

And since the Professor believed that harm had befallen his wife than not he decide to make the information as to her fate disappear by eliminating Toru Higonabi whose actions without observation is as if they had never happened at all. This would suspend her in a kind of limbo, which to him was more satisfactory than his worst nightmare.

Before going off to prison I asked the professor why he hadn’t just hidden the fact that he had killed the man. Why he had given himself up? He was certainly clever enough to hide it and get away with it.

The idea of ideas being a microscopic system subject to quantum rules and its execution a connected system was formed by the Professor. He said that for even this idea to exist it must be observed and the information of its existence given out into the universe. So to ground his theory in reality he had confessed and given himself up.

The idea appeared ludicrous to me at first, I must admit. But as I read up on the principles he had based his theory upon I became a firm believer. It all made sense, it was all there.

And that is the reason why I am here, sitting next to the corpse of Decan Mclroy, suspected pedophile and killer. Also the number one suspect in the missing case of Julian Bertrand, my son. The state never had any evidence to punish this man; so I did. Now his actions are lost as well.

This professor is more than a theory now. I believe it and so soon will others. All those kids are safe; they are not dead as the police suspect. Those 16 missing children along with my son, they are all safe: all in a limbo; all safe our worst nightmares.

I can finally sleep in peace.

End of transcript. Find attached below the statement of Prof. James Mathews which has been made reference off. Both ex-Det. Ryan Bertrand and Prof. James Mathews are under treatment in the Lanwin Center for the Criminally Insane, after which they will serve out life sentences in the Lanwin State Penitentiary.

- Rohith