home · electrical safety · Dichotomies of Schrödinger's cat. The famous riddle of "Schrödinger's Cat" in simple words

Dichotomies of Schrödinger's cat. The famous riddle of "Schrödinger's Cat" in simple words

Encyclopedic YouTube

  • 1 / 5

    In fact, Hawking and many other physicists are of the opinion that the Copenhagen School interpretation of quantum mechanics is unjustified in emphasizing the role of the observer. Final unity among physicists on this issue has still not been achieved.

    Parallelization of worlds at each moment of time corresponds to a genuine non-deterministic automaton, in contrast to a probabilistic one, when at each step one of the possible ways depending on their likelihood.

    Wigner's paradox

    This is a complicated version of Schrödinger's experiment. Eugene Wigner introduced the category of “friends.” After completing the experiment, the experimenter opens the box and sees a live cat. The state vector of the cat at the moment of opening the box goes into the state “the nucleus has not decayed, the cat is alive.” Thus, in the laboratory the cat was recognized as alive. Outside the laboratory is Friend. Friend doesn't know yet whether the cat is alive or dead. Friend recognizes the cat as alive only when the experimenter tells him the outcome of the experiment. But everyone else Friends the cat has not yet been recognized as alive, and will only be recognized when they are informed of the result of the experiment. Thus, the cat can only be recognized as completely alive (or completely dead) when all people in the universe know the result of the experiment. Until this moment, on the scale of the Big Universe, the cat, according to Wigner, remains alive and dead at the same time.

    Practical use

    The above is used in practice: in quantum computing and quantum cryptography. A light signal in a superposition of two states is sent along a fiber-optic cable. If attackers connect to the cable somewhere in the middle and make a signal tap there in order to eavesdrop on the transmitted information, then this will collapse the wave function (from the point of view of the Copenhagen interpretation, an observation will be made) and the light will go into one of the states. By conducting statistical tests of light at the receiving end of the cable, it will be possible to detect whether the light is in a superposition of states or has already been observed and transmitted to another point. This makes it possible to create means of communication that exclude undetectable signal interception and eavesdropping.

    The experiment (which can in principle be carried out, although working quantum cryptography systems capable of transmitting large amounts of information have not yet been created) also shows that “observation” in the Copenhagen interpretation has nothing to do with the consciousness of the observer, since in this case the change in statistics by the end of the cable leads to a completely inanimate branch of the wire.

    What is Schrödinger's cat, Schrödinger cat, everything about Schrödinger's cat, Schrödinger's cat paradox, Schrödinger's cat experiment, cat in a box, neither alive nor dead cat, is Schrödinger's cat alive, cat experiment

    This is a cat that is both alive and dead at the same time. He owes this unfortunate state to the Nobel laureate in physics, the Austrian scientist Erwin Rudolf Joseph Alexander Schrödinger.

    Sections:

    The essence of the experiment / paradox

    The cat is in a closed box with a mechanism containing a radioactive core and a container of poisonous gas. The characteristics of the experiment are selected so that the probability that the nucleus will decay in 1 hour is 50%. If the nucleus disintegrates, it activates the mechanism, the gas container opens, and the cat dies. According to quantum mechanics, if no observation is made of the nucleus, then its state is described by a superposition (mixing) of two states - a decayed nucleus and an undecayed nucleus, therefore, a cat sitting in a box is both alive and dead at once.

    As soon as you open the box, the experimenter should see only one state - “the nucleus has decayed, the cat is dead” or “the nucleus has not decayed, the cat is alive.” But while there is no observer in the process, the ill-fated animal remains “dead.”

    Marginalized

    • Misfortune never comes alone
      Not only the health of the tailed inhabitant of the box is in doubt, but also its gender: in the original experiment, Schrödinger’s cat was still a cat (die Katze).
    • There are no “dead” cats
      It is important to remember that Schrödinger's experiment was not intended to prove the existence of "dead" cats (and, contrary to the statement in the second part of the game "Portal", was not invented as an excuse for killing cats). Obviously, the cat must be either alive or dead, since there is no intermediate state.
      Experience shows that quantum mechanics is not able to describe the behavior of macrosystems (which includes the cat): it is incomplete without some rules that indicate when the system chooses one particular state, under what conditions the wave function collapses and the cat either remains alive or becomes dead , but ceases to be a mixture of both.
    Interpretations Copenhagen interpretation denies that before opening the box the cat is in a state of confusion between living and dead. Some believe that as long as the box is closed, the system is in a superposition of the states “decayed nucleus, dead cat” and “undecayed nucleus, living cat,” and when the box is opened, only then does the wave function collapse to one of the options. Others say that an “observation” occurs when a particle from the nucleus hits the detector; however, alas, in the Copenhagen interpretation there is no clear rule that says when this happens, and therefore this interpretation is incomplete until such a rule is introduced into it or it is not said how it can be introduced in principle. Everett's many-worlds interpretation, unlike the Copenhagen one, does not consider the observation process to be something special. Here both states of the cat exist, but decohere - that is, as the author understands, the unity of these states is disrupted as a result of interaction with environment. When the observer opens the box, he becomes entangled (mixed) with the cat, which creates two observer states, one corresponding to a living cat and the other to a dead one. These states do not interact with each other. The cat as a competent observer
    The author believes that the final word should be left to the cat, who, even if he doesn’t know a thing about quantum mechanics, is certainly better informed than anyone else about his condition. However, his competence as an observer obviously raises doubts among scientists. An exception is Hans Moravec, Bruno Marshall and Max Tegmark, who proposed a modification of the Schrödinger experiment, known as “quantum suicide,” and which is an experiment with a cat from the cat’s point of view. Scientists pursued the goal of showing the difference between the Copenhagen and many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics. If the many-worlds interpretation is correct, the cat, to the joy of his sympathizers, becomes Tsoi and always remains alive, since the participant is able to observe the result of the experiment only in the world in which he survives.
    • Nadav Katz from the University of California and his colleagues published the results of a laboratory experiment in which they were able to “return” the quantum state of a particle back, and after measuring this state. Thus, it is possible to save the cat’s life regardless of the conditions for the collapse of the wave function. It doesn’t matter whether he’s alive or dead: you can always win it back [link] .
    • 06/03/2011 RIA Novosti reported that Chinese physicists were able to create eight-photon "Schrodinger's cat"[link] , which should facilitate the development of future quantum computers

    Image in culture

    Perhaps no one has done more to popularize quantum mechanics than the poor cat. Even people who are farthest from this complex field of knowledge, worried about the fate of the probably suffering animal, are trying to understand the intricacies of the experiment, hoping that not everything is so bad. The cat inspires artists and popular culture.
    Let us mention his main achievements:

    Literature: The situation with Schrödinger's cat is discussed by the main characters of Douglas Adams's book "Dirk Gently's Detective Agency". In Dan Simmons' book "Endymion" main character Raoul Endymion writes his narrative while in orbit around Armagast in Schrödinger's "cat box". In the last third of Robert Heinlein's book The Cat Walks Through Walls, the ginger cat Pixel appears, who has the ability of Schrödinger's cat to be in two states at the same time. Terry Pratchett's book "The Cat No Fool" humorously describes the breed of so-called "Schrodinger cats", descended from the same Schrodinger cat. This thought experiment is also mentioned more than once in other works by Pratchett, for example, in the novel “Ladies and Gentlemen.” In the story by F. Gwynplain McIntyre “Nursing Schrödinger the Cat,” one of the characters turns out to be Schrödinger’s own pet, the cat Tibbles. The action actually unfolds around this cat. humorous story, generously seasoned with details from different areas physics. The plot of Frederik Pohl's science fiction novel “The Coming of the Quantum Cats” (1986) is built on the idea of ​​interaction between “neighboring” Universes. In the philosophical and satirical miniature “Schrodinger’s Cat” by Nikolai Baytov, Schrödinger’s paradox is turned inside out: an organization called the “League of Reversible Time” has been monitoring a living cat in a box for 50 years without interruption, believing that while the observation is being carried out - the state , in which the cat resides, should not change. In Lukyanenko’s book “The Last Watch,” the main character is given a noose called “Schrödinger’s cat” around his neck, the peculiarity of which is that the magicians do not understand whether this creature is alive or not. Mentioned in Greg Egan's novel "Quarantine", in Christopher Stasheff's fantasy "The Healer Magician", in Gregory Dale Bear's story "The Schrödinger Plague"; Polish writer Sapkowski mentions Codringher's cat. In Mercy Shelley's cyberpunk novel 2048, it is said that "a guy with a last name that resembled a file was putting some poor biorg in an iron box with nothing in it but a vial of poison." Svetlana Shirankova’s poem “Schrodinger’s Cat” has a very inspiring beginning: “Doctor Schrodinger, your cat is still alive.” Screen: In the Coen brothers' film A Serious Man, a student declares to a professor, “I understand the dead cat experiment,” which, of course, indicates the opposite. In the film “Repo Man” (“Collectors”, in Russian release “Rippers”) the main character at the beginning of the film talks about an unknown scientist who has a cat. And this cat is in a state of “...both alive and dead at the same time...”. In one of the episodes of the science fiction series Stargate SG-1, a cat named Schrödinger appears. The main character of the science fiction series “Slithers” also has a cat of the same name. In the TV series Stargate SG-1, an orange cat named Schrödinger was given to an alien. Dead cat Schrödinger appears in the TV series CSI: Las Vegas (Season 8, Episode 15: The Theory of Everything). Schrödinger's cat is also mentioned in the TV series "The Big Bang Theory", where, as an answer to a girl's question whether she should go on a date, the hero draws an analogy with Schrödinger's cat, meaning that until you try, you won't know: “Penny, for In order to find out whether the cat is alive or dead, you need to open the box.” In the TV series Bugs, the role of Schrödinger's cat was played by evidence of Red Mercury in a booby-trapped safe. In the Japanese anime Hellsing (OVA) (as well as the manga of the same name), there is a cat-man character named Schrödinger, who is neither alive nor dead, has the ability to teleport ("be everywhere and nowhere"), and is completely indestructible. In the anime “To Aru Majutsu no Index”, when asked by a girl to name a kitten Schrödinger, the main character objects that cats cannot be called that name. The anime Shigofumi also features a cat named Schrödinger. In the Japanese anime and game Umineko no naku koro ni, the experience is used in Battler's attempt to prove the impossibility of magic (also used in "Proof of the Devil", "Hempel's Crows", "Laplace's Demon"). In one of the Futurama episodes, “Law and Oracle,” Schrödinger hid drugs in a box with a cat. Comics/manga: A small comic about Schrödinger's cat and Maxwell's demon. He's Dead: Schrödinger of the Cat: And other comics on joyreactor.ru. Games: There is a quest game “Return of the Quantum Cat”. In the game "Nethack" there is a monster "Quantum Mechanic", who sometimes has a box with a cat with him. The condition of the cat is not determined until the box is opened. In the game "Half-Life 2" there was a cat in a laboratory with teleporters, which Barney "still" has nightmares about. The portrait of Schrödinger's cat is also found in the 1998 remake based on Half-Life. - "Black Mesa" (formerly known as "Black Mesa: Source"). Link to notarized screenshot. In every level of Bioshock, there is a dead cat in a secluded corner, identified as Shrodinger. In the second part you can also find him - the cat rests in one of the ice floes in a frozen room with four surveillance cameras in the corners. The NPC cat of the same name appears in the Japanese RPG Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga. The main slogan of the game Portal, “The cake is a lie,” is an errative of one of the outcomes of Schrödinger’s experiment, namely “The cat is alive.” In the second part of the game, the cat is also not forgotten. Mention of the experiment can be found in the Russian rule book board game"Age of Aquarius". The cat even has his own characteristics plate - it is completely empty, so it’s as if it doesn’t exist. Music: The so-called festival of non-standard music “Schrodinger’s Cat”, held under the slogans “ Real life - real death- real music! and “Is Schrödinger's Cat Alive or Dead? And you?" Google also reports that the name “KoT Schrödinger” is a near-musical project of a very small group from Korolev near Moscow. The British band Tears for Fears' album Saturnine Martial and Lunatic contains a song of the same name. The Russian group “Allein Fur” Immer also performs a song with the same name. Humor: Any joke about Schrödinger's cat is funny and unfunny at the same time. Schrödinger and Heisenberg are driving along the highway to a conference, Schrödinger is driving. Suddenly there is a bang and he stops the car. Heisenberg looks out onto the road:
    - Oh my God, it looks like I hit a cat!
    - He died?
    - I can not say exactly. Schrödinger walked around the room looking for the shitting kitten, and it sat in the box neither alive nor dead. Miscellaneous: Artists pay attention to Schrödinger's cat, trying to convey the ambiguity of his position through painting and graphics. Also, images of this animal can be seen on T-shirts and mugs. Terrorists who are not known to be dead or alive are sometimes called "Schrodinger's terrorists." From famous personalities For example, Yasser Arafat was in this state when he was in a coma before his death, as well as Osama Bin Laden. According to Absurdopedia, a pig in a poke is a simplified version of Schrödinger's cat experiment [link]. Stephen Hawking paraphrased Hans Jost's catchphrase, “When I hear about culture, I reach for a gun,” as follows: “When I hear about Schrödinger's cat, my hand reaches for a gun!” This is explained by the fact that, like many other physicists, Hawking is of the opinion that the “Copenhagen School” interpretation of quantum mechanics emphasizes the role of the observer without justification. In connection with the opening of the MEPhI Department of Theology, the following picture has spread online:

    Surely you have heard more than once that there is such a phenomenon as “Schrödinger’s Cat”. But if you are not a physicist, then most likely you have only a vague idea of ​​what kind of cat this is and why it is needed.

    « Shroedinger `s cat" - this is the name of the famous thought experiment of the famous Austrian theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who is also a laureate Nobel Prize. With the help of this fictitious experiment, the scientist wanted to show the incompleteness of quantum mechanics in the transition from subatomic systems to macroscopic systems.

    This article attempts to explain in simple words the essence of Schrödinger's theory about the cat and quantum mechanics, so that it is accessible to a person who does not have a higher technical education. The article will also present various interpretations of the experiment, including those from the TV series “The Big Bang Theory.”

    Description of the experiment

    Erwin Schrödinger's original article was published in 1935. In it, the experiment was described using or even personifying:

    You can also construct cases in which there is quite a burlesque. Let some cat be locked in a steel chamber with the following diabolical machine (which should be regardless of the cat's intervention): inside a Geiger counter there is a tiny amount of radioactive substance, so small that only one atom can decay in an hour, but with the same probability may not disintegrate; if this happens, the reading tube is discharged and the relay is activated, releasing the hammer, which breaks the flask with hydrocyanic acid.

    If we leave this entire system to itself for an hour, then we can say that the cat will be alive after this time, as long as the atom does not disintegrate. The very first disintegration of the atom would poison the cat. The psi-function of the system as a whole will express this by mixing or smearing a living and a dead cat (pardon the expression) in equal parts. Typical in similar cases is that uncertainty, originally limited to the atomic world, is transformed into macroscopic uncertainty, which can be eliminated through direct observation. This prevents us from naively accepting the “blur model” as reflecting reality. This in itself does not mean anything unclear or contradictory. There's a difference between a blurry or out-of-focus photo and a photo of clouds or fog.

    In other words:

    1. There is a box and a cat. The box contains a mechanism containing a radioactive atomic nucleus and a container of poisonous gas. The experimental parameters were selected so that the probability of nuclear decay in 1 hour is 50%. If the nucleus disintegrates, a container of gas opens and the cat dies. If the nucleus does not decay, the cat remains alive and well.
    2. We close the cat in a box, wait an hour and ask the question: is the cat alive or dead?
    3. Quantum mechanics seems to tell us that the atomic nucleus (and therefore the cat) is in all possible states simultaneously (see quantum superposition). Before we open the box, the cat-core system is in the state “the nucleus has decayed, the cat is dead” with a probability of 50% and in the state “the nucleus has not decayed, the cat is alive” with a probability of 50%. It turns out that the cat sitting in the box is both alive and dead at the same time.
    4. According to the modern Copenhagen interpretation, the cat is alive/dead without any intermediate states. And the choice of the decay state of the nucleus occurs not at the moment of opening the box, but even when the nucleus enters the detector. Because the reduction of the wave function of the “cat-detector-nucleus” system is not associated with the human observer of the box, but is associated with the detector-observer of the nucleus.

    Explanation in simple words

    According to quantum mechanics, if the nucleus of an atom is not observed, then its state is described by a mixture of two states - a decayed nucleus and an undecayed nucleus, therefore, a cat sitting in a box and personifying the nucleus of an atom is both alive and dead at the same time. If the box is opened, then the experimenter can see only one specific state - “the nucleus has decayed, the cat is dead” or “the nucleus has not decayed, the cat is alive.”

    The essence in human language: Schrödinger's experiment showed that, from the point of view of quantum mechanics, the cat is both alive and dead, which cannot be. Therefore, quantum mechanics has significant flaws.

    The question is: when does a system cease to exist as a mixture of two states and choose one specific one? The purpose of the experiment is to show that quantum mechanics is incomplete without some rules that indicate under what conditions the wave function collapses, and the cat either becomes dead or remains alive, but ceases to be a mixture of both. Since it is clear that a cat must be either alive or dead (there is no state intermediate between life and death), this will be similar for the atomic nucleus. It must be either decayed or undecayed (Wikipedia).

    Video from The Big Bang Theory

    Another more recent interpretation of Schrödinger's thought experiment is a story that Big Bang Theory character Sheldon Cooper told his less educated neighbor Penny. The point of Sheldon's story is that the concept of Schrödinger's cat can be applied to human relationships. In order to understand what is happening between a man and a woman, what kind of relationship is between them: good or bad, you just need to open the box. Until then, the relationship is both good and bad.

    Below is a video clip of this Big Bang Theory exchange between Sheldon and Penia.

    Did the cat remain alive as a result of the experiment?

    For those who didn’t read the article carefully, but are still worried about the cat, good news: don’t worry, according to our data, as a result of a thought experiment by a crazy Austrian physicist

    NO CAT WAS HURT

    Schrödinger's cat is the most mysterious of all the cats, cats, cats, cats that humanity adores so much. Viral cat videos are spread across the World Wide Web with millions of daily views, and images of cute kittens are on advertising billboards capable of making us buy any product. The field of popularizing science also has its own mustachioed and striped heroes. More precisely, one is Schrödinger's cat. Surely you have heard about it, even if you are not involved in quantum mechanics. So why has the famous cat haunted physicists and lyricists for almost a hundred years, and also become one of the most curious objects of modern mass culture?

    Schrödinger's cat as a metaphor

    As paradoxical as it may sound, Austrian theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger is the “father” of the most mysterious cat, and not the owner. After all Shroedinger `s cat is a thought experiment, a theoretical paradox, and a truly amazing metaphor for describing quantum superposition.

    Was there a cat?

    The question “Did Schrödinger have a cat?” still remains open. Although, according to a number of sources, in one of the early editions PhysicsToday there is a photograph of the scientist with his pet cat Milton. On the other hand, in the original text of the 1935 article, where Erwin Schrödinger described his hypothetical experiment, it is not a cat at all, but a cat (die Katze). Why did the physicist choose a feline representative as the main character of his concept? How did the cat turn into a cat? These questions seem destined to remain rhetorical.

    Schrödinger's cat is dead with a 50% chance

    Designua / shutterstock.com

    However, if the source of inspiration for the researcher was his personal pet, then, apparently, the reason for this was a vase broken by a cat or damaged wallpaper. Because the main thing that Schrödinger’s cat does during the experiment is to be locked in a steel box and... die. True, with a probability of 50%. Or rather, in addition to the poor animal, there was placed inside the box special mechanism, containing a radioactive core and a container of poisonous gas. If the nucleus disintegrates, the mechanism is triggered, and the cat dies from the released gas. If it doesn't work, it lives. But only the observer who opens the box can know his fate. Until then, the cat is both alive and dead.

    Without a cat, quantum mechanics is not the same

    This whole situation, paradoxical at first glance, clearly illustrates one of the provisions of quantum mechanics. According to him, the atomic nucleus is simultaneously in all possible states: decay and non-decay. If no observation is made of the atom, then its state is described by a mixture of these two characteristics. Therefore, the cat, read - the nucleus of an atom, is both alive and dead. And this is simply impossible. This means that quantum mechanics lacks some rules that determine the conditions under which the fate of the cat is clearly clear.

    Schrödingr's cat: varieties

    It is not surprising that the meaning of what is happening with the mythical cat in a steel box has several interpretations.

    • Copenhagen variety

    There is the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the authors of which are Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. According to it, the cat remains in both states, regardless of the observer. After all, the decisive moment occurs not when the drawer opens, but when the mechanism is triggered. That is, the animal has long since died from the gas, but the box is still locked. In other words, in the Copenhagen interpretation there is no “dead-alive” state, because it is determined by a detector that reacts to the decay of the nucleus.

    • Everett variety

    There is also a many-worlds interpretation, or the Everett interpretation. She interprets the experience with Schrödinger's cat as two separate existing world, splitting into which occurs at the moment when the box is opened. In one universe the cat is alive and well, in another he did not survive the experiment.

    • "quantum suicide"

    One way or another, the poor cat Schrödinger was “tormented” by many physicists. Some, for example, proposed considering the situation with the cat from the point of view of the animal itself - after all, he knows better than all the physicists in the world whether he is dead or alive. Really, you can't argue with that. This approach is called “quantum suicide” and hypothetically allows you to check which of these interpretations is correct.

    Everyone can breed their own variety

    If you look at modern physical science, then we can say with confidence that on the pages of research, Schrödinger’s long-suffering cat is more alive than anyone else alive. From time to time, scientists offer their solutions to this well-known paradox, and also develop the concept in the framework of very interesting developments.

    • "second box"

    For example, last year, researchers at Yale University "gave" Schrödinger's cat a second box for his deadly hide and seek. Based on this approach, scientists tried to simulate the system necessary for the operation of a quantum computer. After all, as you know, one of the main difficulties in creating this type of machine is the need to correct errors. And, as it turns out, using Schrödinger’s cats is a promising way to manage excess quantum information.

    • "micro cat"

    And just a couple of weeks ago, an international team of scientists, led by Russian experts in the field of quantum optics, managed to “breed” microscopic Schrödinger cats in order to advance in the search for the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds. This is how Schrödinger's cat helps physicists develop quantum technologies communications and cryptography.

    Schrödinger's cat is a pop culture star

    Africa Studio / shutterstock.com

    If the cat cannot escape from his ill-fated box, then he managed to get out of the boundaries of scientific concepts and pages of research. And how!

    The character of a mysterious cat with a difficult fate appears with enviable consistency in works of popular culture. Thus, Schrödinger's cat appears in the books of Terry Pratchett, Fredrik Pohl, Douglas Adams and others around the world. famous writers. Of course, there was a mention of the cat in popular television projects such as “The Big Bang Theory” and “Doctor Who.” Not to mention that the image of Schrödinger's cat is constantly found in video games and song lyrics. And the Internet portal ThinkGeek has already made a fortune selling T-shirts with the inscription on one side: “Schrodinger's Cat is Alive”, and on the other - “Schrodinger's Cat is Dead.”

    Cats do it better

    Agree, you can watch amazing thing: The most famous scientific cat is just a visualized model for testing a hypothesis. However, the participation of the tailed pet in it added a significant amount of poetry and charm to the experiment. Or maybe it’s just that cats do everything better? Quite possible.

    And remember: as a result of Schrödinger’s experiment, not a single cat was harmed.

    If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

    If the box is opened, then the experimenter must see only one specific state: “the nucleus has decayed, the cat is dead,” or “the nucleus has not decayed, the cat is alive.”

    "Schrodinger's Cat" - that's the name of the entertaining thought experiment, directed, as you probably already guessed, by Schrödinger, or rather, Nobel laureate in physics, by the Austrian scientist Erwin Rudolf Joseph Alexander Schrödinger.

    Wikipedia defines the experiment as follows: “A cat is placed in a closed box. The box contains a mechanism containing a radioactive nucleus and a container of poisonous gas. The experimental parameters are selected so that the probability that the nucleus will decay in 1 hour is 50%. If the core disintegrates, it sets the mechanism into action - the container with gas opens, and the cat dies.

    According to quantum mechanics, if no observation is made of the nucleus, then its state is described by a superposition (mixing) of two states - a decayed nucleus and an undecayed nucleus, therefore, a cat sitting in a box is both alive and dead at the same time. If the box is opened, then the experimenter must see only one specific state: “the nucleus has decayed, the cat is dead,” or “the nucleus has not decayed, the cat is alive.”

    Read also :

    It turns out that at the exit we have a living or dead cat However, potentially, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. Thus, Schrödinger tried to prove the limitations of quantum mechanics, without applying certain rules to it.

    Copenhagen interpretation quantum physics- and in particular this experiment - indicates that the cat acquires the properties of one of the potential phases (alive-dead) only after the observer intervenes in the process.

    That is, when a particular Schrödinger opens a box, with one hundred percent certainty he will have to cut sausages or call the veterinarian. The cat will definitely be alive or suddenly dead. But while there is no observer in the process - specific person possessing undoubted advantages in the form of vision, and, at a minimum, clear consciousness - the cat will be in limbo “between heaven and earth.”

    The ancient parable about a cat who walks by itself takes on new shades in this context. Undoubtedly, Schrödinger's cat is not the most prosperous creature in the Universe. Let us wish the cat a successful outcome for him and turn to another entertaining problem from the mysterious and sometimes merciless world of quantum mechanics.

    It sounds like this: “What sound does a tree falling in the forest make if there is no person nearby who can perceive this sound?” Here, in contrast to the black and white fate of the unhappy/happy cat, we are faced with a multi-colored palette of speculation: there is no sound/there is sound, what is it like, if it exists, and if it is not there, then why? This question cannot be answered for a very simple reason - the impossibility of carrying out the experiment. After all, any experiment implies the presence of an observer capable of perceiving and drawing conclusions.

    Read also :

    That is, it is impossible to guess what happens to the objects of reality around us in our absence. And if it cannot be perceived, then it does not exist. As soon as we leave a room, all its contents, along with the room itself, cease to exist or, more precisely, continue to exist only in potential.

    At the same time, there is a fire or flood, theft of equipment or uninvited guests. Moreover, we also exist in it, in different potential states. One I walks around the room and whistles a stupid melody, another I looks sadly at the window, the third talks to my wife on the phone. Even our sudden death or good news in the form of an unexpected phone call lives in it.

    Imagine for a moment all the possibilities hidden behind the door. Now imagine that our entire world is just a collection of such unrealized potentials. It's funny, isn't it?

    ABOUT However, a logical question arises here: so what? Yes, it’s funny, yes, it’s interesting, but what, in essence, does this change? Science is modestly silent about this. For quantum physics, such knowledge opens up new paths in understanding the Universe and its mechanisms, but for us, people far from big scientific discoveries, such information seems to be of no use.

    How can this be of no use!? After all, if I, a mortal, exist in this world, then I, an immortal, exist in another world! If my life consists of a streak of failures and disappointments, then somewhere I exist - successful and happy? In fact, there is nothing outside our sensations, just as there is no room until we enter it. Our organs of perception only deceive us, drawing in our brain a picture of the world “surrounding” us. What actually lies outside of us still remains a secret behind seven seals.