Editing Cheshire Cat (section)

==In science==
Cheshire Cat is used as a [[metaphor]] to describe several scientific phenomena:

* The Cheshire Cat effect, as described by Sally Duensing and Bob Miller, is a [[binocular rivalry]] which causes stationary objects seen in one eye to disappear from view when an object in motion crosses in front of the other eye.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Duensing |first1=Sally |last2=Miller |first2=Bob |title=The Cheshire Cat effect |journal=Perception |year=1979 |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=269–273 |doi=10.1068/p080269 |pmid=534155 |s2cid=41619979 }}</ref> {{quote|Each eye sees two different views of the world, sends those images to the [[visual cortex]] where they are combined, and creates a three-dimensional image. The Cheshire Cat effect occurs when one eye is fixated on a stationary object, while the other notices something moving. Since one eye is seeing a moving object, the brain will focus on it, causing parts of the stationary object to fade away from vision entirely.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cheshire Cat: Perception Science Project |url=http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/cheshire_cat/ |website=Exploratorium Science Snacks |access-date=18 September 2014}}</ref>}}

* In another scientific context, catalytic [[RNA]]s have been deemed Cheshire cats. This metaphor is used to describe the fading of the [[ribonucleotide]] construct, which leaves behind a ''smile'' of only the [[mineral]] components of the RNA [[Catalysis|catalyst]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Yarus |first1=Michael |title=How many catalytic RNAs? Ions and the Cheshire cat conjecture |journal=The FASEB Journal |date=1993 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=31–39 |pmid=8422972|doi=10.1096/fasebj.7.1.8422972 |doi-access=free |s2cid=5540534 }}</ref>

* Similarly, the Cheshire Cat has been used out of its traditional context to help define another scientific phenomenon, the "Cheshire Cat" escape strategy. When [[Coccolithophore]]&nbsp;– a type of [[algae]]&nbsp;– is able to [[Ploidy#Haploid and monoploid|resist the haploid phase]] of its life cycle, it escapes meiosis and its dominant diploid genes are passed on in a virus-free environment, freeing the host from being infected during reproduction.<ref name=Frada2008>{{cite journal |last1=Frada |first1=Miguel |display-authors=etal |year=2008 |title=The 'Cheshire Cat' escape strategy of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi in response to viral infection |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=105 |issue=41 |pages=15944–15949 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0807707105 |pmid=18824682 |pmc=2572935|doi-access=free }}</ref> The algae escape death (beheading) by means of disappearance (vanishing his head):{{quote|... [T]aken from Lewis Carroll, we liken this theory to the strategy used by the Cheshire Cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland of making its body invisible to make the sentence "off with his head" pronounced by the Queen of Hearts impossible to execute ... C.C. dynamics, which rely to some extent on separation of the sexual processes of meiosis and fusion in time and / or space, release the host from short-term pathogen pressure, thus widening the scope for the host to evolve in other directions.<ref name=Frada2008/>}}

* Other gestures to the Cheshire Cat's tropes of disappearance and mystique have been seen in scientific literature coming from the field of Physics. The [[quantum Cheshire cat]] is a phenomenon in [[quantum mechanics]] in which a particle and its property behave as if they are separated,<ref>{{cite journal |title=Observation of a quantum Cheshire Cat in a matter-wave interferometer experiment |journal=Nature Communications |date=29 July 2014 |volume=5 |doi=10.1038/ncomms5492 |pmid=25072171 |pmc=4124860 |page=4492 |last1=Denkmayr |first1=T. |last2=Geppert |first2=H. |last3=Sponar |first3=S |last4=Lemmel |first4=H. |last5=Matzkin |first5=A. |last6=Tollaksen |first6=J |last7=Hasegawa |first7=Y.|arxiv=1312.3775 |bibcode=2014NatCo...5.4492D }}</ref> or when a particle separates from one of its physical properties.<ref name="Morgan">{{cite news |last1=Morgan |first1=James |title='Quantum Cheshire Cat' becomes reality |work=BBC News |date=29 July 2014 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28543990 |access-date=24 September 2014}}</ref> To test this idea, researchers used an [[Interferometry|interferometer]] where neutron beams passed through silicon crystal. The crystal physically separated the neutrons and allowed them to go to two paths. Researchers reported "the system behaves as if the neutrons go through one beam path, while their magnetic moment travels along the other."<ref name=Morgan/> A subsequent quantum optics experiment observed this behaviour on individual photons with simultaneous measurements of the photon's spatial presence in one location, and of the same photon's polarisation in a different location.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Unambiguous joint detection of spatially separated properties of a single photon in the two arms of an interferometer |journal=Communications Physics|date=7 August 2023 |volume=6 |doi=10.1038/s42005-023-01317-7  |page=203 |last1=Sahoo |first1=S. |last2=Chakraborti |first2=S. |last3=Kanjilal |first3=S. |last4=Behera |first4=S. |last5=Home |first5=D. |last6=Matzkin |first6=A. |last7=Sinha |first7=U.|issue=1 |arxiv=2201.11425 |bibcode=2023CmPhy...6..203S |s2cid=246294962 }}</ref>

* The Cheshire cat's grin has inspired scientists in their naming of visual phenomena. A merger of galaxy groups in the constellation Ursa Major is nicknamed "Cheshire Cat galaxy group" by Astronomers due to its suggestive appearance.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151127.html |title=Astronomy Picture of the Day |date=27 November 2015}}</ref>

* In linguistics, [[cheshirization]], when a sound disappears but leaves a trace, just like the cat disappears but leaves his grin.

* In [[Conway's Game of Life]], the Cheshire Cat is a cat-like pattern which transforms into a grin in the second to last generation and a block (pawprint) in the last generation.<ref>{{Citation|mode=cs1|first=Martin|last=Gardner|authorlink=Martin Gardner|date=February 1971|title=On cellular automata, self-reproduction, the Garden of Eden and the game 'life'|magazine=Scientific American|volume=224|issue=2|jstor=24927730 |at=115–116|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24927730}}</ref>