I don’t understand..
When we observe it, we can define it’s state right? But it was never in both states. It was only in one, we just didn’t know which one it is. It’s not like if I go back in time and open the box at a different time, that the outcome will be different. It is one of the 2 outcomes, we just don’t know which one until we look. And when we look we discover which one it was, it was never the 2 at the same time. This is what’s been bugging me. Can anyone help explain it? Or am I thinking about it wrong?
In: Physics
Logically, common sense wise, yes you’re correct. But, the whole point of it isn’t to be taken literal, but more to show how weird QM (quantum mechanics) are, especially with the whole idea of superposition.
The whole thing of course goes
*”A cat in a sealed box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and some poison. If the atom decays (random process), the Geiger counter detects it, releases the poison, and the cat dies. If the atom doesn’t decay, the cat is alive.”*
It’s hard to eli5 with quantum mechanics, and yeah from here, the cat is either alive or dead, but we just simply don’t know until we open the box and actually see it, it’s one of those outcomes already. But, with quantum mechanics, particles like atoms can exist in superposition, they can be in MULTIPLE states at once, and in this case it can be decayed and not decayed, which both lead to different outcomes, those are the multiple states. Until we actually observe the particle, the atom is in a *superposition state* of **both**.
In the end, the whole point is to show that quantum mechanics are weird. The idea is that the cat exists in both states until it’s observed. When we open the box, the superposition ‘collapses’ and we find out which outcome it truly is. It’s not really about whether we didn’t know the state it’s in, it’s that the cat exists in both states until it’s finally observed.
I guess one way you can think about it in a more ELI5 way is that, let’s say you have a box. The box is magical, there is a coin inside. The box is a special magic box, because until you open it, the coin is both heads and tails at the same time. It’s not like.. It’s heads and we don’t really know, or tails, it’s both and neither while the box is closed. Only when you finally open the box to see if it’s heads or tails does the whole thing collapse and you figure out the answer. Schrodinger’s cat is basically the same thing, before we actually open it and take a look, the cat is in a ‘mysterious’ state where it just so happens to be alive AND dead, just like how the coin can be heads AND tails at the same time. You, as the observer, open the box and see what the true answer is. Until then, it’s both.
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