how literally should we take the Shcroedinger's Cat thought experiment?

Question

Is it saying that the cat REALLY CAN be half alive and half dead, or it saying something more like:

"subatomic particles behave than the macro-objects we observe and which we would find difficult to intuit. It would be like if a cat could be half alive and half dead at the same time."

"subatomic particles behave *differently* than the macro-objects we observe...

Answer 1

First let me explain the set. You have a radioactive atom and a perfect detector that can detect when the atom decays. Attached to the detector is a mechanism that will kill the cat when the detector reads the decay. Now radioactive decay is a random process so you can never predict exactly when an atom decays. Now you put that cat inside a black box. You have no way of looking inside the box except opening it up.

Until you the box you have no idea whether or not the cat is dead or when it died but once you open it you whether that cat is alive or not.

From the quantum point there are two ways to look at the problem before you open the box. The first is that the cat is both alive and dead at the same time until you open the box and then by opening the box you interact with the system and force the cat to take on of the two states. (This is the many worlds interpolations)

The other way to look at it is that there is simply a probability at any time that cat is dead. But you can never be certain that the cat dead until you open the box. (This is the Copenhagen interpretation)

The whole idea of the Schrodinger Cat experiment is to illustrate the complexity of Q.M. in a world that we a familiar with and to show the two different interpretations of the math and theory.

Answer 2

1) you should take it VERY seriously. the many world theory is currently by general convention the way that the scientific world explains the uncertainty principle

2) the cat is not "half dead" and "half alive." it is a superposition of the two. Basically the cat is both all alive AND all dead. By having an uncertainty, you have an overlap of two possible outcomes... a split in possible worlds, if you will. when you open the box, the outcome is chosen, and you fully enter one or the other worlds. at that point, the cat ceases to be one of the items and remains the other (ie, for shroedinger, the cat ceases to be all alive, and remains in the other possible world as all dead. This applies to ANY uncertainty, not just quantum particles.

Answer 3

I think it has something to do with the fact you cannot observe both the speed and location of a moving object at the same instance in real time. Both need to be worked-out as separate, though, intimate properties of one event. Just as cause and effect are separately tied together in one continuious event.

Answer 4

The whole point about Schrodinger's Cat was to demonstrate that the superposition principle doesn't apply sensibly to macro-scopic systems.

Answer 5

If the cat lives, take it seriously. If not, don't.