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I'm trying to wrap my head around this famous thought experiment.
Let me know if I'm meowing up the wrong tree:
As best I can tell, Herr Schrödinger is suggesting that a radioactive atom can't be in a superposition of having decayed and not decayed, because then we'd have to accept that a cat could be in a superposition of being alive and dead, and isn't that ridiculous?
Where I stumble is understanding why is this ridiculous? It's plainly contrary to common sense, but I think I can get over that, so what's the problem?
Showing all 13 replies.
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>>16993510
But why should I hold common sense sacred in this case? There's not much in this sort of physics that seems intuitive.
I could say that because an object feels solid to the touch that it's absurd to suggest that the particles that make it up are mostly empty space. But then I'd be called arrogant and stupid, wouldn't I?
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>>16993504
I thought it was just a dumb thought experiment for the normies? The message is that whatever you know about the world is wrong and you aren't just right just because you believe yourself to be right. Things only make sense to you because that's just what you are used to. Anything that is unknown to you seems like it doesn't make sense just because you didn't grow up learning it. To me it seems like some things "behave differently" until you "force them" to not behave differently. An electron goes through two holes at once in the double slit experiment unless you "force it" to assume one position in which it goes through one whole lol.
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The way I always interpreted it was like, making contact with something changes its behavior to make it become "real."
Naturally, nothing has a set location until you touch its general area and then it is "forced" to have a location lol.
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>>16993546
>The message is that whatever you know about the world is wrong and you aren't just right just because you believe yourself to be right.
That's just it, though; normally I'd agree that a cat can't be both alive and dead simultaneously, but I'm willing to accept it because I don't have any good arguments to say that can't be the case.
But Schrödinger seems to say that I should reject it, and I'm not sure why.
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>>16993504
Schrodinger was making a claim that the Copenhagen interpretation is retarded.
Many Physicists at the time, and today were debating the implications of the mathematical formulisms of quantum mechanics.
One idea is particles have no definite properties until an "observation"
Schrodinger was making a point anout the Copenhagen interpretation of a quantum system not being resolved until directly measured by a classical experiment. The cat part is only there as a meme.
This is an excercise like "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?"
"If a particle decays and no one observes it, did it really decay?"
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You can just open the box and look, or the cat would be panicking and scratching and making noise. It is in a box, in front of you, not millions of miles away. Just another bullshit one for the intelligent to mentally masturbate over. There are far better thought experiments. It its about atoms then it makes more sense but why can't he just say atoms?
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WOW, what horrible low IQ responses.
Where to start? Half of you have no idea what an "observation" is in the dictionary let alone as far as physics is concerned. Some of you are invoking gravity as if a dead cat and living cat have different gravitational pulls aka different mass. They don't. The rest of you are babbling on about "Muh Common Sense" when all of physics is unicorn farts and fake dark matter anyways, common sense is not applicable.
Schrödinger was a product of his time and had a huge ego and human failings like being too short sighted or set in his ways. Many big minds of his time failed to grasp the changing tides of physics and he thought his little joke quite clever and biting. In reality he argued against himself and will forever be remembered as the guy helped mainstream quantum physics.
Now what Schrödinger failed to understand was the Quantum world would go on to imply many many deep paradoxes and questions about reality itself which to this day are still being discovered and hotly debated. Please see the Nobel Award winning research about Local Realism which also disproves Einstein's objections to quantum spooky action at a distance. See more old timers who are just wrong. Many such cases.
So yes, Schrödinger is correct that the cat is in superposition inside the box unless and/or until observed. He said it ironically to make fun of the idea but the irony of the universe won and he's actually correct, despite himself.
>Does a tree falling in the woods make a sound if no one is around to hear it?
No, no it doesn't.
>If a particle decays and no one observes it, did it really decay?
No, no it doesn't
The real "common sense" is realizing these uncomfortable and seemingly impossible things are in fact true and the reality we live in.
Schrödinger is like the men in Plato's Cave chained to the ground convinced the shadows on the wall are real.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/summary/