Schrödinger’s Cat is often used to illustrate the paradoxical nature of quantum mechanics, but does this thought experiment accurately reflect the complexities of quantum theory, or does it simplify them to the point of misunderstanding?
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The thought experiment can be adjusted to make more intuitive sense if we redefine what ‘observation’ means. In popular media ‘observation’ refers to a conscious being opening the box. Many sources are hellbent on somehow mixing people and consciousness into the whole topic. Perhaps this was also the prevailing intuition back in the day.
Instead, if we consider the first interaction made with the the decay product (which either kills or doesnt kill the cat) to be an observation then there is no paradox. The decay particle is released from a decaying atom, and it will either be observed by the detector which sets off the events that kill the cat, or it goes somewhere else. Before the detector makes the observation, both future states are ‘possible’.
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