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| image by Giane Portal via sxc.hu |
An often misunderstood concept in quantum mechanics is Schrodinger’s Cat. A thought experiment used to describe the behavior of a particle in potential well.
In a nutshell a cat is placed into a sealed box and a poison gas is released. The question now: Is the cat alive or dead?
Traditionally the answer given is the cat is simultaneous alive and dead until you open the box. And this act (observing) changes the outcome and collapses the wave form associated with Schrodinger’s wave equation.
The catch for most is, how can the cat be alive and dead at the same time? The cat is a metaphor for the Copenhagen Interpretation of Young’s double slit experiment, which showed that light has a dual particle and wave nature.
However,Schrodinger postulated this thought experiment to critique the Copenhagen Interpretation. Because macro objects (things much lager than atoms) obey Newtonian physics. Thus they have a discrete position and momentum.
Moreover because Schrodinger’s wave equation is probabilistic, a collapse of the wave form is expected ,since the probability of the cat being in any other sate when the observation is made drops to zero.
A better statement of Schrodinger’s Cat should read the cat has equal probability of being alive or dead until the measurement is made.