this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
416 points (94.4% liked)
Technology
59454 readers
4670 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As far as you know. Maybe that's the reasoning behind weird stuff in quantum mechanics. The cat is both alive and dead until you open the box and look at it.
The whole point of the cat thing was to point out the absurdity of the claim that reality isn't real until you know about it. The cat is already in whatever state you observe when you open the box. It's not both alive and dead, it's either alive or dead. The thought experiment isn't serious, and it's not supporting the idea that the cat is somehow magically in both states just because you haven't yet manipulated the lid of a wooden cube.
When we talk about the cat being both alive and dead, it's a simplification to help visualize a quantum phenomenon where particles exist in multiple states simultaneously until measured or observed.
Schrodinger came up with the cat to represent the absurdity of quantum mechanics because he thought it was absurd - but that doesn't mean his metaphor isn't a useful one. Particles like electrons or photons can exist in a state of superposition, where they hold multiple potential states (e.g., spin up and spin down) at the same time. This isn't just a theoretical curiosity; it's been experimentally verified in numerous quantum experiments, such as the double-slit experiment.
The act of measurement in quantum mechanics forces a system to 'choose' a definite state from among its superposed states, a process known as wave function collapse. Before measurement, the system genuinely exists in all its possible states simultaneously, not in one state or the other. This is a fundamental aspect of the quantum world