So.. I’ve recently taken an interest in Physics and mainly Quantum Physics. And I had heard of Schrödinger’s Cat many times.. but only vaguely knew what or who Schrödinger’s Cat was! This is going to be a little explanation about Schrödinger’s Cat. Don’t worry if you are not the Physics type or your brain becomes switched off after nerdy babble, this is going to be simple. Basically, the great scientist, Erwin Schrödinger decide to explain Quantum Physics and he took the example of a cat inside a steel box with a Geiger counter, a vial of poisonous gas, a lump of radioactive material and hammer. The cat would put into the steel box with no escape or anything. If the lump of radioactive material started to decay that would be spotted by the Geiger counter, the vial of poisonous gas would broken with a hammer and therefore the cat would have been killed.
The cat inside the box has got a 50/50 chance of survival, either the lump doesn’t decay or it does. We don’t know whether the cat has died or if it is sitting contentedly inside the box licking its paws. The cat is in a state of superposition, that means the cat is in every state possible, in our case either dead or alive. The state of superposition is broken when we decide to look inside the box and it is either dead or alive (not both). Our observation leads to knowing whether the cat is dead or alive. But who is observing us to make nature collapse to one reality or what if both possibilities of the cat staying alive or dying happen in two different multiverses? O.o
You have to really understand Quantum Physics to understand this concept. Classical Physics is simple, for example we know that distance traveled equals time traveled multiplied by velocity. That is easy stuff, but Quantum Physics isn’t like that at all! Quantum Physics gives the probability that we will make a given measurement. Quantum Physics describes how probabilities change with time. If you switch back to the example of Schrödinger’s Cat, the radioactive material has 50/50 chance of decaying in the first hour. After 10 hours there is a high chance that one particle of the lump has decayed.
Quantum Physics is tricky yet really shocking. It can sometimes blow your mind.
Keep checking my blog for new posts! A few more Quantum Physics posts coming soon!!!
– Liza Amini
lizaamini 