Schrodinger's cat

[Anonymous No.5547723]

I don't get how Schrodinger's cat can be dead or alive at the same time. I read the wikipedia page, but it was confusing... Can anyone try to explain it to me in simple terms?

[Anonymous No.5547735]

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

[Anonymous No.5547744]

This thought experiment is terrible and doesn't help you learn anything. Never speak of it again.

[Anonymous No.5547763]

>>5547744
hear hear. It's just a faggoty waste of time. It's actually useful somewhat though - you can use it to tell who's actually a fan of science and learning, and who's just a faggot who latched on to something about a cat.

[Anonymous No.5547775]

>>5547723
in quantum mechanics it works like this:
you dont know all the properties exactly (one particle does not know it of another one when they interact)
when they interact you sum over all the ways it can ineract within the uncertainty you have on the properties.
the final results is what actualy happens.

you cant know if the cat is dead or alive, so any interaction with it will sum over both. but since its has to be one or the other once you interacted with it the final result is still just dead or alive, so its actualy kind of boring. it would be more interesting of the cat could be in 3 states and when you sum over it it eleminates one.

[Anonymous No.5547776]

I always cringe when I hear yet another "i'm-a-scientist-for-getting-this"-Schrödingers Cat jokes, so
>>5547763
>>This.

[Anonymous No.5547779]

>>5547744
>>5547763
>paradox of the Wigner's friend

[Anonymous No.5547787]

>>5547779
>quantum consciousness

>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.5547803]

>>5547787
wat

[Anonymous No.5548158]

>>5547779
Wigner's friend is hogwash.

[Anonymous No.5548168]

The catbox is a stupid thought experiment that Shrodingus thought up to show his disdain for the Copehagen convention's findings. Obviously the cat is dead, but the idea of something existing in an undeterminded state, only to "pick" a state upon being observed sounds dumb and made shrodingus butthurt.

[Anonymous No.5548170]

Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel > Schrodingalings cat

[Anonymous No.5548246]

There have been like 5 fucking threads about the same thing in the last fucking 5 mins.

[Anonymous No.5548257]

>>5548246
this is a old one. the original i think.

[Anonymous No.5548305]

Do you know that Schrodinger lived with two chicks and had kids with both of them while they did? He also had kids with at least two other chicks and pretty much boned everything in sight. Half of /sci/ is probably genetically Schrodinger, but somehow failed to inherit success with women.

[Anonymous No.5548310]

OP if you're not a troll read this.
>>5548298

[Anonymous No.5548317]

>>5548170
That isn't a paradox.

[Anonymous No.5548327]

Schrodingers cat isn't meant to be taken on an analytical perspective.

Is the cat alive or dead? The idea is you will never know until you open the box. Therefore, you can't judge the likelihood, sure it may be dead, but your brain doesn't have closure, it can't know for sure.

The jar could have shattered, or it could not. the cat could be meowing and you'd never hear it. there is an infinite number of possibilities.

[Anonymous No.5548330]

>>5547723
Life and death aren't quantum states. Purrwin Schrodinger the cat isn't both alive and dead, because he's like Maxwell's Daemon, not meant to be taken as a literal truth or possiblity, but merely to demonstrate a concept. Purrwin could only be both alive and dead if he was an electron and life and death were quantum states.

[Anonymous No.5548332]

erm...Im pretty sure Schrodinger came up with the cat analogy to point out a problem with the copenhagen interpretation.

[Solardarity !DNRaYdJbog No.5548333]

>>5548317

It's a good thought experiment into the nature of infinity and how you can have infinities larger than others. Which is confusing considering the whole concept of infinity implies it being the largest possible quantity.

It's thought provoking.

[Anonymous No.5548344]

>>5548327
No, that's wrong.

Its not meant to be "you can't know the light in your fridge goes off when its closed, because you can't see inside the fridge when its closed. Its an analogy for actual quantum behavior. One of our cherished logical principles must be abandoned when we move to the quantum scale. It is not just some empty stoner philosophy statement, its a legit statement about the implications of quantum physics taken to its most ridiculous extreme.

[Anonymous No.5548349]

>>5548344
Yet still an analogy

[Anonymous No.5548350]

>>5548332
Yes, but his contemporaries had the good sense to see that the analogy was not apt. While the breaks in logic quantum physics entails are analogous to the cat experiment, the subject itself is not analogous to a quantum mechanical system.

[Anonymous No.5548353]

>>5548349
Yes, .5 |life> + .5 |death>, is not a valid state.

[Anonymous No.5548369]

>>5548353
you mean:
<div class="math">\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|life\rangle +\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|death\rangle</div>

and it seems like a perfectly fine state to me, provided |life> and |death> states exist.

[Anonymous No.5548419]

>>5548369
yes, i did mean square root. And the point is that |life> and |death> states do not exist. There is no quantum state that is life, or one that is death.

[Anonymous No.5548436]

>>5548419
yes there are, its the 2 states of all the particles in the states they have when its alive and dead.

[Anonymous No.5548439]

>>5548436
but that's wrong.

[Anonymous No.5548448]

>>5548439
why? its a perfectly valid state.

[Anonymous No.5548508]

The point of Schrodinger's cat is to illustrate the absurdity of considering the uncollapsed wave function to be a physically real thing.

It is the most vivid argument for the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is that the uncollapsed wave function is a representation of our uncertainty of the true details of the situation, and that the collapse of that wave function is a representation of our increased knowledge of those details.

The whole point of it is that cat obviously CAN'T be both dead and alive at the same time, we can only be uncertain of whether it is alive or dead.

However, while this seems like the unavoidable conclusion in this case, in other scenarios, this interpretation seems untenable.

The real truth is probably somewhere in the middle: some aspects of the uncertainties inherent in the wave function represent physical realities, while others are mere artifacts of the model -- some aspects of collapse mirror physical processes, others mirror only the change of our own knowledge.

[Anonymous No.5548528]

>>5548508
>the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is that the uncollapsed wave function is a representation of our uncertainty of the true details of the situation
I shouldn't have said this. There actually isn't one "Copenhagen interpretation".

The people who do QM are generally really bad at talking about what it means. They can seem to agree with each other when they're together, but when you get them apart they contradict each other like crazy.

[Anonymous No.5548548]

>>5548508
>>The whole point of it is that cat obviously CAN'T be both dead and alive at the same time, we can only be uncertain of whether it is alive or dead.

But alive AND dead is not even remotely correct.
If those were Schrodinger's own words then it's time it be modified.

see:
>>5548298

[Anonymous No.5548564]

>>5548548
This is nitpicking. The point is that, setting aside the ill-defined moments during which it is dying, a cat is either dead or alive at all times.

For a cat to be in a superposition of the states of being stone dead or perfectly healthy, as a real physical situation rather than a description of our uncertainty of whether it is alive or dead, is absurd.

[Anonymous No.5548575]

>>5547723

Its just complete bullshit, and its what pseudo intellectuals brag about to look smart

>hurr i know quantum mechanics man schrodingers cant maaan its so crazy maan

[Anonymous No.5548603]

>>5548575
>Its just complete bullshit

This is not correct.
To use a macro-scale object like a cat was foolish,
but the description given, for a subatomic particle, is valid.
(Possibly only mathematically, but potentially also in real, physical terms.)

It's good that you rebel against such an idea; you're in good company. But don't go too far, you might learn it is necessarily true.

[Anonymous No.5548611]

>>5548603
>To use a macro-scale object like a cat was foolish,
No, it was the whole point of it, to bring the example into the realm of common sense to show where certain interpretations of QM violate common sense.

[Anonymous No.5548612]

>>5548575
It's based on the concept of sub atomic and observance. Not necessarily that the cat doesn't exist, but may partake a different structure.
That being said, I agree with what you said about the pseudo intelligent.

[Anonymous No.5548635]

>>5548611
>to bring the example into the realm of common sense

He brought it into the realm of familiar physics, but that wasn't what the concept was about.
What he did was try to ridicule the concept by changing the context unfairly.

[Anonymous No.5548643]

>>5548635
It was not "changing the context unfairly", it was pointing out inconvenient logical consequences of a damn silly idea.

[Anonymous No.5548685]

>>5548643

he changed the context from
subatomic particles (a realm where NONE of the macro-scale physical laws apply, and which is already drastically unfamiliar ground for many)
to macro-scale, where Newtonian rules are familiar and objects don't behave like atomic or subatomic particles in any way, ever.

It's like trying to explain the tactics of pitching a baseball in the context of running American football -- fourth down is NOT very similar to 2 strikes and 3 balls.

In physics, you don't apply the electroweak formulas to a cat. Neither do you expect a large boulder to move like a neutron.
Schrodinger tried to make it sound sillier than it already did.

[Anonymous No.5548722]

>>5548685
The whole point of studying these microscopic phenomena is to determine their macroscopic consequences, ESPECIALLY in cases where the effects of individual events at the particle level are amplified until they have significant consequences on their own, since those are exactly how we study them.

There's no value in a theory of particles that is logically disconnected from the theory of large systems of those particles.

If you really think that considering the Schrodinger's cat scenario is unfair, you've missed the entire point of fundamental physics.

[Anonymous No.5548745]

>interpreting quantum state vectors as anything other than calculation tools
>not using glorious path integrals and weak values for your understanding of reality
i shiggity diggity

[Anonymous No.5549404]

sage