Schrodinger's Cat

When Erwin Schrodinger struggled to explain the quantum theory superposition, he created a cat to describe the paradoxical theory. A box contains a cat, a radioactive substance and a device of death. If a single atom of that radioactive substance decays, then the device will kill the cat. Without opening the box, we cannot know if the cat is dead or alive. Thus, according to superposition, the cat is both dead and alive. Once we open the box and check the status of the cat, it is no longer in superposition. Unless we make the observation of whether the cat is dead or alive, it is both. The cat acts as a metaphor and attempts to demonstrate the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics.

--by Serena Dai

 

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