Schrodinger's Cat - Deepstash
Schrodinger's Cat

Schrodinger's Cat

Art by: Julia Maystruck

Schrodinger's Cat illustrates the paradox of quantum superposition: the idea that several quantum systems can exists in several quantum states at the same time.  

  1. A cat 🙀 flask of poison 🧪 and radioactive substance ☢️ are sealed in a box 📦
  2. Detecting any radioactivity means the flask shatters ☠️ killing the cat 😿
  3. After a while quantum mechanics sees the cat as simultaneously alive & dead.

But once you open the box the cat is either dead OR alive (not both alive & dead). So at when did quantum superposition cease & reality start? 

6

31 reads

CURATED FROM

IDEAS CURATED BY

mikemintz

I tell stories.

When we think beyond impossibilities we create new realities.

Similar ideas to Schrodinger's Cat

The feline paradox: Schrodinger's cat

A cat is placed in a steel box along with a Geiger counter, a vial of poison, a hammer, and a radioactive substance. When the radioactive substance decays (it decays as a random process), the Geiger detects it, triggers the hammer, and release the poison, which kills the cat.

Unti...

The paradoxes of quantum particles

Quantum particles can act as particles located in a single place, or they can act as waves that are distributed all over space or in several places at once.

How they appear seems to depend on how we choose to measure them. Before we measure, they seem to have no apparent p...

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Personalized microlearning

100+ Learning Journeys

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates