Schrödinger's cat is one of the most famous thought experiments, but few people know exactly what it is. The point is that Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead. How is this possible?

Schrödinger's catis an experiment that many have heard of but few understand. Sheldon Cooper, the protagonist of The Big Bang Theory, as gifted as sure of his knowledge physicist, explained its meaning briefly: "You won't know until you open the box."

In turn, the famous doctor House in one of the episodes complains, in the context of Schrödinger's cat, that in recent times too little has been heard about experiments related to physics.

Schrödinger's cat is alive and dead at the same time

To understand what a Schrödinger cat is, you can imagine a cat and a closed - necessarily opaque - box in which it is located. In addition to the cat in the box, through the eyes of the imagination, we see a hammer, a bottle of poison that can be broken by this hammer, a Geiger counter whose task is to set the hammer in motion and an atom of radioactive element that can start the counter. The counter will be triggered when the atom decays. And as mentioned earlier, when a timer is fired, it sets in motion a hammer that breaks the poison bottle that kills the cat.

Remember, however, that the cat is in an opaque box and we cannot predict the exact moment of the atom breaking. So we don't know if the timer has started because we can't see what's going on in the box. So, until we pick up the box, the cat inside it can be alive and dead at the same time. Only when the box is opened does the cat assume one of two possible states.

At this point, it is worth remembering that Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, that is, not carried out in reality. No, nomen omen, no living cat got hurt.

Schrödinger's cat is not only physics

Schrödinger's cat is only applicable in physics? Nothing could be more wrong! Consider, for example, the possibility of going on a date - until we go on it, it will be both successful and unsuccessful. The inheritance we inherit could be similar, but we do not know what it is - until we know its exactcontent, inherited items can be both very valuable and completely worthless.

Schrödinger's cat is mentioned not only by physicists, but also by various people involved in culture and art. Schrödinger's thought experiment has appeared many times in literature - he used it in his novels, among others Terry Pratchett. Schrödinger's cat has also been mentioned in films and series - among them one can mention, among others such productions as the previously mentioned: "Dr. House", "The Big Bang Theory" or "Six Feet Under".

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Who was the creator of the experiment?

The creator of the experiment was Erwin Schrödinger - an outstanding physicist, he mainly deals with quantum mechanics, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.

He described his experiment, called a paradox (because it is paradoxical that a cat lives and dies at the same time) in 1935. The experiment with the cat was to help understand and describe the translation of the world in the nano (or atomic) scale into the world with which we come into contact every day and which we see with the naked eye, i.e. the world in the macro scale.

Watch the experiment pictorially explain the Quantum Pills on YouTube!

About the authorBow. Tomasz NęckiA graduate of the medical faculty at the Medical University of Poznań. An admirer of the Polish sea (most willingly strolling along its shores with headphones in his ears), cats and books. In working with patients, he focuses on always listening to them and spending as much time as they need.

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Category:

Psychology