can someone explaine in laymans terms Schroedinger's Cat?

Answer 1

Schrodingererstanding of the Schrodinger Cat thought experiment is that it is an exploration of the implications of Quantum Mechanics that states that the final state of a quantum system is not resolved until it is observed.

It goes like this: Suppose you place a cat in a box with a device that will kill the cat if it detects a particular nuclear decay were to take place. The decay is the quantum mechanical event. The device is rigged so that the probability of the nuclear decay event is exactly 50% after one hour. So here is the weird part.

According to quantum mechanics the nuclear decay will be in a state physicists call superposition. What that means is that the decay will have both occurred and not occurred. Yes both conditions are true at the same time, which is a real mind bender. That duel state will persist until the system is observed at which time the superposition will collapse and the system will choose which state to be in, either the decay occurred or not. The question asked is what happens to the cat? The thought experiment proposes that the observation takes place by opening the box and observing whether the cat is dead or not.

The paradox is what is the cat's condition before you open the box? Is it somehow both alive and dead at the same time because of the superposition of the nuclear decay? Does the cat live or die at the instance the box is opened?

The really weird part of this is that experiments have been performed that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that superposition is a real thing and the experiments prove that it does happen.

This thought experiment was proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It was quite controversial at the time and many people did not know what to think about what it means. The modern way of looking at this is that the thought experiment description misidentifies the observer as the person opening the box. Scientists now thing the real observer is the device that measures the decay and that the superposition is resolved as soon as that measurement is made.

Answer 2

A cat is placed in a sealed box. Attached to the box is an apparatus containing a radioactive atomic nucleus and a canister of poison gas. This apparatus is separated from the cat in such a way that the cat can in no way interfere with it. The experiment is set up so that there is exactly a 50% chance of the nucleus decaying in one hour. If the nucleus decays, it will emit a particle that triggers the apparatus, which opens the canister and kills the cat. If the nucleus does not decay, then the cat remains alive. According to quantum mechanics, the unobserved nucleus is described as a superposition (meaning it exists partly as each simultaneously) of "decayed nucleus" and "undecayed nucleus". However, when the box is opened the experimenter sees only a "decayed nucleus/dead cat" or an "undecayed nucleus/living cat

Answer 3

In a slightly different explaination, the life or death of the cat is an irreversible event. if the cat has died, it can't be brought back to life.

the decay of the isotope is an event that can only be determined by direct examination of the isotope,

when scientists say that the "half-life" of an element is 1 year, what they mean is that in one year, about half of the atoms will have undergone a fundamental change. (decay)

But if you take one atom, it may decay immediately, or it may be the one atom in the batch that never decays.

the concept of a "half-life" is a statistical "mean" - the most commonly occuring value of a mathematical function.

in the case of any quantum mechanical system, events occur in fixed quantity steps, or quanta.

in any one instance, the event may meet its needed conditions right now, or never, but in a group of cases, the mean will hold true.

also, the idea of someone opening the box to see if the cat has died is a example of the fact that if you observe something, you are changing it by the act of observation.

if the system emits radio waves and you put a radio wave detector near it, the detector absorbs the radio waves and changes the result of the waves in free space.

the waves are no longer free to move when something that absorbs them is nearby.

i hope that helps

the observer alters the subject of observation by the act of observing it. (Albert Einstein)

Answer 4

in accordance to the Copenhagen college, parts that are probabilistic consequences which have not yet been talked about at the instant are not hidden variables yet are indeterminate till they are talked about. The cat is in a container with a chew of radioactive fabric that emits an alpha particle each and every once in a lengthy time period (imagine of it as a really lengthy time period, like once a week). there's a geiger counter hooked to a pistol which will shoot the cat even as the alpha particle is detected. the completed inner wall of the container is a particle detector, so the first decay will kill the cat. After one week, without starting the container, is the cat alive or lifeless? answer: enable the danger that the alpha decay has befell after one week be p (imagine of it as round 50%). The container is sound-data and bullet-data, for sure, or we may have an remark, and the cat may be both alive or lifeless, yet not both. although, with a valid data, bullet data container, the cat is in a "superposition of states", fairly, that is p x lifeless and (a million-p) x Alive.

Answer 5

If you put a live cat in a sealed box and then introduce something (a poision, for instance) into the box without examining anything... you really don't know that the cat is dead. The cat is in a non state, it is alive until verified dead. That inbetween state is shroedinger's cat.

Okay, the guy above me got it much better!

Answer 6

On a quantum level, all possibilities exist simultaneously; i.e., the cat lives and the cat dies. It is only when you observe the event--open the box--that there is a resolution on the level of gross matter; i.e., the cat lives or has expired.

Answer 7

Observation collapse the wave function

Answer 8

It means that the cat can't be dead and alive at the same time.