Schrödinger's Cat

Schrödinger's cat is a classic thought experiment in quantum mechanics.

To illustrate the fact that a particle can be everywhere at once until you look at it, let's put a cat in a lead box. We can't see inside the box or get any information from it. Now, let's put a single radioactive atom and a Geiger counter in the box with the cat. The Geiger counter is attached to a bottle of cyanide, which breaks if the atom decays. Clearly, if the bottle breaks, the cat is dead. And there is a 50-50 chance of the atom decaying in an hour.

Now, after an hour has elapsed, is the cat dead or alive? Since we have no way of knowing, the cat must be simultaneously both dead and alive-until you open the box. Then the cat becomes either dead or alive. Same goes for a photon. It'll take every possible path to a target-until you look at it. Then it takes only one path. The role of the observer is important!

Visit this site for more awesome info on the Schrödinger's cat dilemma:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_122.html

Nathan Olson

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Cool I never knew that! ShroedingersDog? IsADog?