November 29, 1935 Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his famous

thought experiment "Schrödinger's cat"

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment which Erwin Schrödinger used to show the absurdity of the
Copenhagen Interpretation (CI) of quantum physics (developed by Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and
Albert Einstein in Copenhagen in 1927).

CI says that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at
once. It's only when we observe its state that a quantum particle is essentially forced to choose one
probability, and that's the state that we observe.

While this makes sense in quantum physics, it does not make sense in classical (real world) physics.

Schrödinger wanted to show that this way of thinking about quantum mechanics would lead to absurd
situations.

He designed a thought experiment.

A cat is placed in a room that is separated from the outside world.

 A Geiger counter which counts the amount of radioactive decay and a little bit of a radioactive
element are in the room.
 Within one hour, one of the atoms of the radioactive material might decay (or break down
because the material is not stable), or it may not.
 If the material breaks down, it will release an atomic particle, which will hit the geiger counter,
which will release poison gas, which will kill the cat.

The question now is: at the end of the hour, is the cat alive or dead? Schrödinger says that according to
the Copenhagen Interpretation, as long as the door is closed, the cat is dead and alive. There is no way
to know until the door is opened. But by opening the door, the person is interfering with the
experiment. The person and the experiment have to be described with reference to each other.

By looking at the experiment the person has influenced the experiment, therefore it may not give us the
correct answer.

This thought experiment was designed to show how foolish it is to think of quantum states for large
objects.

Today, thanks to the internet and memes, more people are using Schrödinger’s cat as a reference for
uncertainties in everyday life.

Did you know about this?