ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

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this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2012

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E is for explain.This is for concepts you'd like to understandbetter; not for simple one word answers,walkthroughs, or personal problems.LI5 means friendly, simplified andlayman-accessible explanations.Not responses aimed at literal five year olds(which can be patronizing).

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[–] SybariticLegerity 174 points 3 years ago*

Schrodinger's cat is not an actual cat, or even a physicalthing. It's a thought experiment; an idea. It was proposedby Erwin Schrodinger, and it involves a cat and a box.Inside this box is a hammer, the cat, a vial of poison, ageiger counter, and radioactive material. The box isrigged up so that if the material decays (which iscompletely random), the geiger counter detects it, makesthe hammer swing and break the poison, and the cat dies.

If you shut the box, there are no observers. No oneknows what's going to happen in the box, and in fact,can't know. It's completely random, so until you open thebox, you have no idea if the cat is alive or dead. Thethought experiment proposes that, until you do, the cat isboth alive and dead at the same time.

Schrodinger won a Nobel Prize for this thought experimentbecause it showed how some quantum mechanicalprocesses don't make sense on a macro (real world)scale, and by extension, don't make sense on a microscale. He was flawed, but the first part still holds up.Obviously a cat can't be alive and dead at the same time.But with quantum physics, until you observe certainparticles which can be in one of two states, it's actually inboth, in much the same way as the cat is alive and dead.

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submitted 3 years ago by curtcollin

So, I'm going through r/funny, and I found this post. Iunderstand the joke, it's pretty self explanatory, butI'm also curious as to what exactly a Schrodinger'sCat is (and wikipedia can't ELI5).

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The joke, in case you didn't understand fully, was thatuntil the next part of the song kicks in, you don't knowwhich one it is. So it's both Under Pressure and Ice IceBaby at the same time.

EDIT: Was corrected by AdvocatingDevil. It will mostlikely stay top reply, so please read that.permalink

[–] AdvocatingDevil 87 points 3 years ago*

That's not quite right. Schrodinger came up with thisthought experiment as an argument against thesuperposition of quantum states (which says that aparticle can act like its multiple places at once, until itis forced to decide exactly where it is when it interactswith something). Schrodinger's cat wasn't supposed tojust show that superposition doesn't make sense on amacro scale, he was saying that by extension it didn'tmake sense on a micro scale. His argument wasflawed, and he eventually admitted it. That's right, thefamous Schrodinger's cat thought experiment wasn'tever supposed to make sense, it was meant to showhow a confusing rival theory was false. The rivaltheory turned out to be true.

His Nobel was for advances in wave mechanics ingeneral. He helped us understand that all particlesalso act like waves, and he came up with some reallyuseful equations to help us understand how thesewaves behave.permalink parent

[–] trabo 7 points 3 years ago

Well done, you devil, you.permalink parent

[–] BBQCopter 1 point 3 years ago

Blasphemy never tasted so good.permalink parent

[–] The_Serious_Account 2 points 3 years ago

How is it flawed?permalink parent

[–] igormorais 1 point 3 years ago

I thought De Broglie was the big dog in the wholeparticles behaving as waves shenaniganspermalink parent

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[–] curtcollin 30 points 3 years ago

Informative, and makes perfect sense. thanks!permalink parent

[–] Conquestador 10 points 3 years ago

Actually, as AdvocatingDevil wrote below in thiscomment chain:

That's not quite right. Schrodinger came upwith this thought experiment as an argumentagainst the superposition of quantum states(which says that a particle can act like itsmultiple places at once, until it is forced todecide exactly where it is when it interactswith something). Schrodinger's cat wasn'tsupposed to just show that superpositiondoesn't make sense on a macro scale, he wassaying that by extension it didn't make senseon a micro scale. His argument was flawed,and he eventually admitted it.

His Nobel was for advances in wave mechanicsin general. He helped us understand that allparticles also act likes waves, and he came upwith some really useful equations to help usunderstand how these waves behave.

permalink parent

[–] Datkarma -2 points 3 years ago

Still the best explanation though.permalink parent

[–] ClownBaby90 7 points 3 years ago

I'm sorry but I've tried to understand this for the better part of a year now and I don't see thepoint of it. Isn't this basically saying "Until you know something, you don't know something?"permalink parent

[–] riomhaire 5 points 3 years ago

It's an actual property of quantum mechanics that's really hard to explain without soundingstupid. A particle can exist in two states at once (a superposition) in quantum mechanics butonce a measurement is made of the state it collapses into one or the other. It is not just "wedon't know which state it's in" it is actually in both states at once. This has actual implicationsfor things like quantum computing.permalink parent

[–] cscx 2 points 3 years ago

Something I've heard quite a bit is that since quantum objects can tell if someone isobserving them, then there is something special about humans and therefore god.

S

555 points · 307 commentsELI5 how are laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol onSunday legal and not a violation of the separationbetween church and state?

discussions in /r/explainlikeimfive< > X

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

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Now, I know this argument is rubbish, but I'm still curious about the whole "observing"part. As far as I'm aware, "observation" is really just a shorthand way of saying that aphoton or some other particle came in contact with the quantum object, and forced it tocollapse it's waveform.

Am I totally off-base and hysterically misinformed, or have I actually somehow grasped anaspect of quantum mechanics?permalink parent

[–] riomhaire 3 points 3 years ago

This idea that the particle "knows" when you're looking is actually kind of similar towhen people say "it's just a theory!" It's because people interpret scientific statementsin everyday language instead of what the scientists are actually trying to say.

Just so you know what I'm talking about the scientific definition of a theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body offacts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment." Butin every day usage theory just means "some idea I had." So when people hear abouta scientific theory they think it means any old idea to explain something, when itactually means a really good explanation that's backed up by a lot of evidence.

So when scientists say a superposition state collapses when it's observed they do notmean this only happens when someone looks at it and tries to measure it. It hasnothing to do with us knowing if it's there or not. The electron don't give a damn if ascientist is trying to look at it and it doesn't get camera shy. In simple terms thesuperposition state will collapse when anything from the outside interacts with it.Anything at all.

We just say that it collapses when its observed because to do any kind of observationwe need to interact with it, which will cause it to collapse. So if we want to do anexperiment involving superposition state electrons it means that for as long as wewant the superposition to exist we cannot allow anything to interact with it, whichmeans we cannot make any observations. We can't look at it! For as long as we wantthe superposition to exist we have to make sure never to measure it becausemeasuring it requires interacting with it and interacting with it will collapse it.permalink parent

[–] cscx 1 point 3 years ago

By "measuring", are you referring to the fact that to measure a particle you needto bounce other particles off of it, and that is what makes it collapse, or is itsomething more abstract?permalink parent

[–] kyz 0 points 3 years ago

Of course quantum objects can tell if you're "observing" them. You "observe" them bysmashing large things into them and seeing if your large things were deflected in anyway. Imagine I threw double-decker buses at you to see if you were there - wouldn'tyou know if one hit you?permalink parent

[–] cscx 3 points 3 years ago

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zh1zc/eli5_what_is_schrodingers_cat/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:50 PM]

Hey, no need to be nasty. I'm just trying to clear up any vague language, andreplace it with exact statements. "Observe" is a very vague term, while "makescontact with the photons, electrons, etc. that we use to detect them" is not.permalink parent

[–] QuigleyQ 3 points 3 years ago

Subatomic particles CAN be in a cloud of probability states. If you want an example, thedouble-slit experiment is a good one. The particle actually behaves as if it exists in multipleplaces at once. This can also be described by modeling it as a wave, but I'm not sure if thesetwo concepts are the same.

Anyway, we never see this in the real-world. Objects are in one place and one place only. Thecat is EITHER alive OR dead. Not both, and not neither. This is where people oftenmisinterpret the experiment. From what we know, cats are never in a superposition.

Schrodinger's cat is a way of pointing out a facet of quantum mechanics we don't understandyet. An unstable isotope is actually both decayed and undecayed until we observe it. But thequestion is, why doesn't that carry over to the cat? Is the cat too big? Does the cat'spresence count as observing? Some other explanation?

TL;DR: Schrodinger's cat asks, "Why doesn't weird quantum shit carry over from atoms tocats? The current theory does not explain that."permalink parent

[–] AdvocatingDevil 6 points 3 years ago*

We know why the superposition doesn't carry over to the cat.

You are familiar with the set up right? A particle that is in a superposition of states (sayyes and no) is hoked up to a detector that is hooked up to some sort of contraption thatwill kill the cat when when a particle is in a certain state. Well, the argument goes thatsense the particle that governs the whole system is in a superposition of states of allpossibilities (both yes and no at the same time) then so is the whole system, including thecat.

This argument complacently misses the fact it isn't that causes the collapse ofa superposition (the collapse of the superposition of states is a fancy way of sayingforcing the particle to choose either yes or no) it is any interaction period. Because theparticle has to interact with the detector, this simple act will cause the collapse of thesuperposition. That's what Schrodinger got wrong.

The idea of particles existing in a cloud of states and acting like a wave are indeed thesame idea. The "wave" that we are referring to is the particles chance of being in anycertain place, at any given time. It is a wave of possibilities of where the particle mightbe, and as the double slit experiment you mentioned showed us, the particle is actually inall the possible places it can be untill it is forced to decide exactly where it is.

I can tell you have a decent background in physics, sorry if I came off as condescending.The simplicity was for the benefit of everyone else.permalink parent

[–] QuigleyQ 1 point 3 years ago

Erp. Sorry. Somewhere in there, I switched tense and didn't notice. It's not like theparticle 'knows' it's being watched. But isn't there still confusion about how much

observation

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

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interaction is permitted before the wavefunction collapses? Recently, someone got twopairs of ions entangled. http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jan-feb/40permalink parent

[–] SunAvatar 1 point 3 years ago

There's only confusion if you actually take wavefunction collapse seriously. In fact,there's no need to think "collapse" is something that really happens out there inthe world. To demonstrate this all you have to do is imagine how things would lookdifferent if the wavefunction never collapsed, but just continued to evolve. Answer:they wouldn't look different at all, because the particles that make up our brainswould be entangled with whatever we observe and so we would still only see oneoutcome.permalink parent

[–] igormorais 1 point 3 years ago

This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this? You piqued my interest but Ican't grasp it fully yetpermalink parent

[–] heymanthatsnotcool 6 points 3 years ago*

Pretty much. The thing about quantum mechanics is that particles exist in a fuzzy state untilthey are observed. If it sounds odd, that's because it is. I forget which physicist said it, but Ibelieve one of them said something along the lines of "If you think you understand quantummechanics, then you obviously don't understand quantum mechanics."

Edit: A quick Googling of the quote in question tells me that Richard Feynman said theaforementioned thing about stuff, although I paraphrased it slightly.permalink parent

[–] GracefulxArcher 1 point 3 years ago

Feynman is a genius. I want to sex him.permalink parent

[–] zeekar 6 points 3 years ago

No. It's not a case of just not knowing; it's a case of the system . Experiments like the double-slit show this to be true; the two

states interfere with each other, so the system behaves in a way different than it would if itwere in one or the other state by itself.permalink parent

[–] AdvocatingDevil 2 points 3 years ago

You're right on the surface of things, but it's quite a bit more then that. You see until itsforced to decide, the particle itself doesn't know exactly where it is. This one of the mostconfusing things to people who want to understand quantum mechanics.permalink parent

[–] thatsumoguy07 1 point 3 years ago

Not really. It's not like Christmas morning when you wake up and don't know what your

actually not being in eitherstate until you measure it

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

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parents bought you. It's actually a lot more complex than that. The idea is that there is nooutside action other than nature (whether the radioactive material decays or not) and becauseof that, nature cannot make a decision since there is no outside force to dictate the decision(meaning you visibly seeing the cat dead or alive). So nature doesn't decide, it just leaves thecat in a superposition state, where it both is alive and not alive (this gets even worst inparticle physics, because you have the uncertainty principle, wave functions, and a bunch ofother crap, that could say that the cat is alive, dead, on Jupiter, non-existent, outside of thebox, or inside another box all at the same time, until you collapse the wave function) until aforce (you observing it) forces it to choice. The idea gets even more complicated, becausewhat force is making us decide to open the box at all? Are we ever in a superposition statewhere we decide to open the box and not open the box at the same time, and an outsidecollapses the wave function and we open the box? And if so, what dictates that force? But ofcourse we are macro and so we don't have the same rules as quantum (or at least we believethat to be). But if you ask a string theorist we do, and those superposition states weencounter are then acted out inversely on another universe (meaning in our universe we openthe box, in another universe we don't) and nature does this for all of the superpositionopportunities (cat lives in one, dies in another, and all the other examples I said early there isan universe for each, in fact there is an infinite number of states it can be in, an infiniteuniverse for it).permalink parent

[–] UnclaimedUsername 3 points 3 years ago

Schrodinger won a Nobel Prize for this thought experiment

Nitpicky here, but that part's not true. Schrodinger won the nobel prize for his contributions toquantum mechanics, along with Paul Dirac. He came up with the thought experiment two yearslater. Thought experiments are just to illustrate the application of theory, I don't think anyonehas ever won a Nobel Prize for one.

Sourcepermalink parent

[–] [deleted] 2 points 3 years ago

I like the Vanilla Ice-Queen/Bowie analogy. Nice touch.permalink parent

[–] u8eR 1 point 3 years ago

At which point does something go from being quantum to macro? Where and how does thistransition occur?

Also, can you explain a little further your sentence, "until you observe certain particles which canbe in one of two states, it's actually in both."

Thanks.permalink parent

[–] SybariticLegerity 1 point 3 years ago

Some particles change state from merely the act of observation. You can't observe their statenow, because if you try, it will be different. Because of this, it is actually in a superpositionbefore the time of observation; both states at once. It stops acting like this at about the size

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

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of an atom, I assume, but I'm not entirely sure.permalink parent

[–] SunAvatar 2 points 3 years ago

I'm pretty sure they've succeeded in replicating the two-slit experiment with hydrogen andpossibly helium atoms by now. It's most likely not so much a solid cutoff as it is that, thelarger and heavier the particle, the harder it is to avoid being entangled with its path.

You could replicate the two-slit experiment with soccer balls, if you sent the entireexperimental apparatus into interstellar space and shielded it from its surroundings withdepleted uranium.permalink parent

[–] [deleted] 1 point 3 years ago

Wow! Thanks so much for breaking it down this way, this really solidified my understanding.permalink parent

[–] ziggyzflow 1 point 3 years ago

Wow, I've read about this sir Schrodinger's cat and every time i read i have no idea what it'sactually about until you came along good sir.permalink parent

[–] strobexp 1 point 3 years ago*

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle; something along the lines of, viewing something, shining lighton it, photon would interfere with determining the momentum and the position of a particle, soyou can't know both at the same time...permalink parent

[–] pilkie02 1 point 3 years ago

Schrödinger did not win Nobel Prize for a thought experiment. That is ludicrous beyond words.permalink parent

[–] getrdune 1 point 3 years ago

I feel like this is pretty much saying that if a guy drowns in a lake with no witnesses, than he isboth alive and dead. Why is my statement any different?permalink parent

[–] Caserole 1 point 3 years ago

I finally understand this! Thank you for a concise answer!permalink parent

[–] jonsandys 0 points 3 years ago

Terry Pratchett added a dash of reality in "Lords and Ladies": "In fact, the mere act of openingthe box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinatestates the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious."permalink parent

[–] lagerdalek 11 points 3 years ago

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zh1zc/eli5_what_is_schrodingers_cat/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:50 PM]

The benefit of searches

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=Schrodinger&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance

This question has an almost novelty status on ELI5 for being the most asked. Usually you'll get thecliched 'that time of the week again' response

public service announcementpermalink

[–] vdanmal 1 point 3 years ago

This and special/general relativity are asked all the time.permalink parent

load more comments (1 reply)

[–] heldt 3 points 3 years ago

I don't think the cat is dead if you can hear it scratchpermalink

[–] alexpv 3 points 3 years ago

Oh, Penny! Not again!permalink

[–] daisyisfly 1 point 3 years ago

Sing me Soft Kitty.permalink parent

[–] alexpv 1 point 3 years ago

♪♫ Soft Kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur~~ ♪♫permalink parent

[–] daisyisfly 1 point 3 years ago

You're not going to finish??permalink parent

[–] alexpv 2 points 3 years ago

♪♫ Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr ♪♫permalink parent

[–] EileenSchuh 3 points 3 years ago

Who the heck is Schrödinger and what’s with his cat? That’s what my hapless heroine asked whenconfronted with that phrase. It all has to do with quantum physics, believe it or not.

Yes, quantum physics has a cat. A cat trapped in a box. A cat that is neither dead nor alive. It allstarted like this:

The tiny building blocks that make up matter, like electrons and photons, have dual personalities.Scientists can do experiments that prove these quanta are not particles but wave functions.

“Oh, I thought you meant cat, like pussy cat,” Chorie said.

“I do mean a pussy cat.”

“Quantum physics has pussy cats?”

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Unfortunately for those of us who are rational, they also can do experiments that prove they are notwave functions but particles. Quantum physicists learned to live with the ambiguity and declared thatit was the observation of these entities that determined which face they showed to the world.

Along about that time, Schrödinger said something like, “Wait a minute, guys. That makes no senseat all. Suppose you put a cat in a box and then you shoot an electron at it. Suppose the box isrigged to kill the cat if the electron turns out to be a particle and not kill it if it is a wave function.What happens to the cat until an observer takes a peak to see which face the electron showed us?”

Everyone went something like, “Oh, yeah. You’re right. There must be something wrong with ourmath. With our experiments. With our equations.”

Then along came Everett. And he said, “Wait a minute, guys. Your theory is correct becauseeverything that can possibly happen does happen. Each possibility splits off into a new dimension.Schrödinger’s electron is both a particle and a wave function. The cat both lives and dies. Theobserver sees the cat both dead and alive. This is my Many Worlds Theory and it gets rid ofSchrödinger’s troublesome cat and lets you keep your math and science and ambiguity. For in oneworld the electron is a particle and the observer finds the cat dead. In another world, the electron isa wave function and the observer sees the cat alive.”

Or something like that.

Schrödinger’s Cat by Eileen Schuh—a psychological crime thriller than spans two universes.permalink

[–] BarryLincoln 4 points 3 years ago

wikipedia can't ELI5

Have you tried Simple Wikipedia? (Found in "Related Links" to the right.)permalink

[–] spanish_sahara 2 points 3 years ago

Schrodinger was this awesome quantum physicist, he theorized our current model of the atom, andin 1935 he created a theoretical experiment to explore the copenhagen interpretation (due to wave-particle duality, a photon or wave exist as both until observed). He set up the experiment: 1. there isradioactive material, a geiger counter, a hammer, hydrocyanic poison, and a cat in a box. 2. Thehammer is set up to drop if the geiger counter detects a single particle of radioactive decay. If thehammer drops, then it breaks the vial of hydrocyanic poison and kills the cat. 3. It only takes oneradioactive particle to decay and kill the cat, so until it is observed, as the copenhagen interpretationsuggests, the radioactive particle is both decayed and not decayed. 4. This means that the cat in thebox is both alive and dead.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyworlds/time-06.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/permalink

[–] mellamojay 2 points 3 years ago

You know some really really smart 5 year olds.permalink parent

[–] [deleted] 0 points 3 years ago

Goddammit! Please, world, stop asking this motherfucking question! Do you not know how to use

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search? Fuck! This piece of shit question is asked at least three times a week and every single piss-christ time, it's bullshit. Cron Prn.permalink

[–] mrofmist 1 point 3 years ago

Quantum wave-function theory.

It's a very poor metaphor to describe how the theory says that at an atomic level, there are infinitepossibilities for everything. Until something observes the condition.

Sorry if that's still obscure. Its very hard to explain such a complex theory in a simple manner.permalink

[–] mellymelz89 1 point 3 years ago

A zombiepermalink

[–] Radico87 1 point 3 years ago

It's a thought experiment where all you know is that there is a cat in a box but not whether it's aliveor dead. So, it's both for all you know. The act of you observing it collapses the possibilities into onebecause you can tell if it's alive or dead.

The act of observing an atom changes it's motion and you don't know where it was before or afterwith any certainty. The more precise, the more unreliable.permalink

[–] barium111 1 point 3 years ago

TL:DR - If you cant see(detect in any way) something its both alive and dead(in 2 completelydifferent states)

Its suppose to explain quantum physic, world of very very small. Particles are in both completelyopposite states and it will take one state by the simple act of observing. Problem with this theory isthat you cant observe these small particles without reacting with them. You need special instrumentto see them and when you bring that instrument it reacts with particles with its mass, magnetism,electricity... but some people think it reacted by simple watching the particle.

To understand better lets say there is a pile of gunpowder in completely dark room. It is so dark youcant see anything. What you need is the source of light. Lets say the only source of light in the worldis open flame. You bring the open flame closer to the gunpowder to see it and it explodes. Yourconclusion is that it exploded by simple act of watching the gunpowder which is bogus.Instrument(open flame) you used to see the gunpowder is the cause of the reaction.permalink

[–] [deleted] 1 point 3 years ago

Schrodinger's Cat is the reason my friends and I get into a shouting argument whenever we playpoker and someone misdealspermalink

[–] AngryWeasels 1 point 3 years ago

fair enough, been a reasonable amount of time since it was last asked.permalink

ELI5: What is Schrodinger's Cat? : explainlikeimfive

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[–] sacundim 1 point 3 years ago

It's a cat that was either smashed into a bloody pulp or starved to death and decomposed a longtime ago. We just don't know which.permalink

[–] maccam912 1 point 3 years ago

For people who "understand" but don't UNDERSTAND the cat story: I recently heard it compared tohearing the beginning of Ice Ice Baby or Under Pressure. For a few seconds, its both.permalink

[–] [deleted] 1 point 3 years ago

ELI5 Version:

Cat is in a boxIs cat alive or dead?You can only know by opening the boxHow do you tell its state when box is unopened?You cannot, you can only assume it is both alive and deadOnly at the point you open the box, can you determine the state correctlyThe purpose for this: The act of opening the box was an analogy for measuring the state ofparticles.

permalink

[–] IrregardingGrammar -1 points 3 years ago

It's pretty self explanatory eh? Then i don't suppose you need it explained like you're almost atoddler.permalink

[–] [deleted] -1 points 3 years ago

A very unlucky beastie.permalink